You can select whether you want your schedules to run as foreground or background tasks. When you create a new schedule, the default is for it to run in the foreground. To run a schedule in the foreground, DeltaV Operate must be running in the run-time environment. Running a schedule in the foreground is useful for testing and debugging VBA scripts.
To run a schedule in the background, the FixBackgroundServer task must be running. If the FixBackgroundServer task is not running, it is automatically started when a schedule is added to the background task. To create a schedule that runs in the background you must change the default setting in the Scheduler Properties dialog box, which is available by right-clicking a schedule and selecting Scheduler Properties from the pop-up menu. You can use this dialog box to change the default setting for a new schedule or for an existing schedule that is set to run in the foreground. Also, you can select whether you want a schedule to run in the foreground or the background, set the window properties, and set the statistics refresh rates.
If a picture opens from a background schedule while you are editing a picture or schedule in the WorkSpace, you may experience unexpected behavior. In some instances, the picture may open over a modal dialog box and you will not be able to get back to the dialog box.
To avoid this problem, we recommend that when adding an entry to a background schedule, you configure the schedule to check whether DeltaV Operate is in the run-time or configuration environment before opening a picture.
Schedules that are configured to run in the background cannot reference pictures. When FixBackgroundServer opens a schedule that references a picture, it also tries to open that picture. Since FixBackgroundServer cannot open pictures, an error message appears.
For more information on creating new schedules and using the Scheduler Properties dialog box, refer to Creating and Editing Schedules and Entries in the topic Designing Schedules.
The FixBackgroundServer task can run on its own or as a Windows service.
Normally, you want your schedules to start automatically when DeltaV Operate is started. To do this, you must add the schedules to the background task startup list. If you are adding entries to a schedule that is already running in the background, you can choose whether or not to start monitoring the entry immediately.
The following is an overview of the steps necessary to successfully implement a foreground schedule:
When creating a schedule that runs in the background, you can create it directly as a background schedule or create a foreground schedule and convert it to a background schedule. The following is an overview of the steps necessary to successfully implement a background schedule: