PPM background services

This section provides information about the background services available in PPM, and instructions on how to enable and schedule them. It also provides guidelines for scheduling background services to optimize resource use and system performance.

Available Background Services

Service Name

Description
Agile Data Sync Service
  • When a PPM project is integrated with an agile project, this service periodically synchronizes the agile project data (such as defects, features, and user stories) to PPM Agile Projects portlets.
  • When a portfolio epic is related to agile projects, the epic will be added and implemented in the agile projects. This service periodically synchronizes the epic story points and progress data from each related agile project to the portfolio.

ALM Startup

Ensures that the quartz scheduler that synchronizes PPM and Service Manager is running.

Applet Key Cleanup

Periodically removes old records from the database table KNTA_APPLET_KEYS. (These are temporary, system-generated keys used for one-time access to the system—for example, if a user wants to open the PPM Workbench.)

Commands Cleanup

Periodically removes old records from the prepared commands tables.

Concurrent Request Watch Dog

When Deployment Management submits a concurrent request (job) to Oracle Apps, this service polls Oracle to determine what state the job is in, and when it has completed.

Cost Rate Rule Update

After it checks for changes to cost rules and cost factors, this service:

  • Updates time sheet costs stored on the time sheet

  • Updates financial summaries that are synchronized to staffing profiles

  • Adds projects to the queue for Cost Rollup Service, which updates project cost in the workplan and in the financial summary.

Cost Rollup

Cost rollup service asynchronously rolls up planned and actual costs (entered manually or pulled from time sheets) from leaf tasks to root tasks in workplans, and then pushes the data to the financial summary.

In addition, the cost rollup service rolls up actual costs from time sheets to financial summaries for programs, proposals, and assets.

For programs and projects, the following changes trigger line insertion into the pending rollup table.

  • Program or project settings changes.
  • Saving time sheets against programs or projects, or canceling time sheet lines against programs or projects.
  • Adding or removing program contents, or financial summary changes of program contents.
  • FX rate or cost rate changes that impact programs or projects.

Note: For programs and projects, the following changes does not trigger line insertion into the pending rollup table but are considered in the next service run.

  • Resource category changes.
  • Activity capitalization changes (whether activity can be capitalized).

Debug Messages Cleanup

Periodically removes old records from the KNTA_DEBUG_MESSAGES database table, which can collect a lot of temporary data.

Directory Cleanup

Cleans up files in the dynamic content directory. The PPM Server generates these files and writes temporarily to the dynamic content directory so that they can be accessed over the Web. After the scheduled number of days, the files are deleted because they are no longer necessary.

Document Cleanup

Periodically checks for documents that are no longer attached to a PPM entity, and removes those it finds from the PPM file system.

Evaluate TM Approvers

An Time Management service that periodically checks to determine whether the resource assigned to approve a timesheet has changed.
External Request Info Sync Service Periodically synchronizes the field values between PPM requests and their mapped agile entities.
External Work Plan Sync Service Periodically synchronizes user stories in all sprints from agile management systems to PPM tasks.

Exception Rule

Periodically checks to determine whether active projects are running on time. Determines if and when task exceptions are recalculated. For more information about this service, see the Project Management Configuration Guide.

Field Security Pending Denormalization

Because managing field-level security is computationally expensive, whenever the security settings at the field level are updated, this service performs calculations that ensure live security checks in performance.

Financial Metrics Update

Calculates net present value (NPV) and nominal return for Financial Management.

Financial Summary Rollup

Calculates rollups of financial information, including forecast and actual costs and benefits (monthly data) and approved budgets (annual data), for the following:

  • Rollups from proposals, projects, and assets to a program

  • Rollups from proposals, projects, assets, programs, and subportfolios to a portfolio, along with immediate rollups to all the successively higher levels in the portfolio hierarchy

The following events, performed by manual entry or by another background service such as Cost Rollup or Web services, trigger this rollup service:

  • Addition or removal of items in the program or portfolio

  • A change to the financial summary of any item in the program

  • A change to the financial information of any item in the portfolio

FX Rate Update

Recalculates cost after financial exchange (FX) rates change.

Interface Tables Cleanup

Periodically removes old records from the database open interface tables.

Logon Attempts Cleanup

Periodically removes old records from the KNTA_LOGON_ATTEMPTS database table, which contains records of all logon attempts.
Mobile TM Approval Service  

Mobility Access

Enables PPM users to process approval workflow steps from desktop email or a PDA device. Resources working outside of an office or without VPN access can act on approval workflow steps without having to first log on to PPM.

For information about PPM Mobility Access, see the Demand Management Configuration Guide.

Notification Cleanup

Deletes rows (older than the current date minus the number of days set for the notification cleanup service) from the KNTA_NOTIF_TXN_PARENTS table in the database. The service then deletes all child rows from the KNTA_NOTIF_TXN_DETAILS, KNTA_NOTIF_TXN_COLUMNS, and KNTA_NOTIF_TXN_RECIPIENTS tables.

Notification

Enables the notification service. You can use this parameter to turn off notifications for copies of production instances being used for testing, and turn them on again when the system goes to production.

Pending Assignments Table Cleanup

Periodically checks for duplicate rows in the
KNTA_PENDING_ASSIGNMENTS table. This parameter is related to the Work Item Pending Assignment service. If a work item is updated more than once between runs of the work item breakdown service, the KNTA_PENDING_ASSIGNMENTS table contains duplicate rows. This service removes the duplicates.

Pending Cost EV Update

Asynchronously applies external updates to the Pending Cost EV Updates service when updates cannot be made immediately.

Pending EV Updates Table Cleanup

Removes duplicate rows in the Pending EV Updates table.

Performance Log Cleanup

Deletes data from the Performance Log table
(PPM_PERFORMANCE_LOG) in the database. The PERF_LOG_DAYS_TO_KEEP parameter determines how long records remain in the table. All records older than the number of days specified by this parameter are deleted from the table.
Program Health Automatically updates program health indicators.

Project Health

Automatically updates project health indicators.

Project Planned Value Update

This service handles synchronization between requests (as cases of blocking predecessors) and between requests and tasks if a request is updated and the target entity is locked.
Project Quality Sync Service

This service synchronizes quality KPI data from ALM releases to the mapped PPM tasks.

When it runs, it checks whether all the PPM task - ALM release mappings have been synchronized in the current day. If yes, it does not sync data for the existing mappings. If new mappings are detected, it syncs data for the new mappings only. That's to say, even if the service is set to run more than once in a day, it syncs data for each existing mapping only once a day.

Reference Update

Automatically updates references between entities.

Request Status Export

Determines whether any request status values were changed since the service last ran. If status values have changed, and if the updated requests reference remote entities, then the status values for the referenced remote entities are updated.

Resource Pool Rollup

Performs resource pool rollup (between child and parent resource pools.)

RM Notification

Resource pool and staffing profile notification service. This service must be enabled in order to send notifications to staffing profile managers, resource pool managers and resources. For more information, see the Resource Management User Guide.

Service to update the Projected Total values for Budgets and Staffing Profiles

Periodically updates the projected totals for budgets and staffing profiles.

Shared Lock Cleanup

Cleans up any entries left in the shared lock table after a PPM Server crash.

Staffing Profile Financial Summary Sync

Synchronizes staffing profile data with financial summary data at a configurable interval. You can schedule the service so that synchronization does not happen automatically whenever changes are made to a staffing profile or a budget. If updates are frequent, delaying synchronization can help preserve system performance.

Staffing Profile Period Sum Update

Rolls up actuals from time sheets and projects/tasks to staffing profiles. Whenever a time sheet or project/task is updated, the actuals are displayed on the linked staffing profile only after this service runs.

Synchronize Documentum Folder/Security Group Name

The Micro Focus Document Management module uses PPM entity names (project names or request type names) to name the folders and security groups in the EMC Documentum repository. As those entity names change in PPM, this background service picks them up and applies the changes to associated items in the Documentum repository.

For more information, see the Document Management Guide and Reference.

Task Actual Rollup

Determines if and how frequently periodic task actual roll-ups are calculated.

Asynchronously rolls up actuals provided through Time Management or the My Tasks portlet. For more information about this service, see the Project Management Configuration Guide.

Task Scheduler

Determines if the work plan schedule health is recalculated and the frequency with which work plan schedule health is recalculated. For more information about this service, see the Project Management Configuration Guide.

Time Sheet Notifications

Enables notifications to be sent on time sheets.

TM-PM Sync

Synchronizes time sheet updates from Time Management to project work plan tasks in Project Management, at a configurable interval. Each time the service runs, it sends a message to the queue for each work plan that must be synchronized with time sheets. The service ensures that roll-ups for each work plan can be accumulated and updated once, if necessary, per work plan.

Work Item Pending Assignment

Periodically populates the KRSC_ WORK_ITEM_ASSIGNMENTS table, which is used for resource work load information. The service retrieves the actuals information from the request.

Work Item Pending Update

On the PPM Server, periodically calls KRSC_PROCESS_PENDING_UPDATES.Patrol to process updates to work items.

Workflow Timeout Reaper

Scans all active workflow steps to verify that they have timed out according to the settings for the step.

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Running Services on Multiple Nodes

You can run multiple instances of the same type of service concurrently to process different entity IDs on the same or different nodes in a server cluster.

For recommendations on how to schedule and run background services, see Minimizing the Performance Impact of Running Background Services.

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Enabling and Scheduling PPM Services

You can enable and schedule the PPM background services through the standard interface.

To enable and schedule PPM services:

  1. Log on to PPM.

  2. On the Open menu, click Administration > Schedule Services.

  3. Click the table row that displays the service you want to enable, disable, or schedule.

    You cannot modify the typical load values which are assigned to the services based on extensive testing and feedback from the field. Light services are short-lived with low resource consumption. Heavy services take longer to run and are more resource-intensive than light services.

  4. To enable or disable the service, from the Status list, select Enabled or Disabled.

  5. To select the type of expression to use to schedule the service, from the Schedule Type list, select either Simple or Cron.

    If you use a cron expression to schedule a service, keep in mind that cron expressions take into account the TIME_ZONE parameter setting for the PPM Server on which the service runs. In a server cluster environment, servers can be running on machines located in different time zones.

  6. In the Schedule column, do one of the following:

    • To schedule the service using a simple expression, type a number in the first field and, from the list on the right, select the time unit (seconds,minutes, or hours.)

    • To schedule the service using a cron expression, type the expression in the text field. For detailed help on how to compose a cron expression, under the Schedule Type column heading, select the Help icon ( ).

      The value you type in the Schedule field cannot exceed 40 characters.

  7. For each additional service you want configure, repeat step 3 through step 6.

  8. After you have finished configuring services, click Save.

Your changes take effect immediately after you save them. There is no need to restart the PPM Server.

If a service misses one or more of its scheduled runs because, for example, the PPM Server is shut down, the service is run as soon as the server is restarted.

We recommend that, if you have a server cluster configured, and there are nodes in the cluster that do not handle incoming user requests, you disable the nodes from running the PPM background service. For details, see Disabling Nodes from Running Background Services.

Starting Background Service on Demand

You can manually trigger a background service to run immediately, regardless of its pre-configured schedule or whether it is enabled or disabled. However, you cannot trigger a service that is running.

We recommend that you manually start a background service only for the purpose of troubleshooting.

To force a background service to run immediately:

  1. Click Open > Administration > View Service Audit Page.
  2. In the Service Audit Results page, locate the background service you want to run.

  3. Click the square icon in the Is Running? column.

    The status of the background service becomes "Running", unless the service run completes too fast. You can check if the service has run in the Service Audit Page.

  4. Click the background service link to check the running details.

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