Time of day deadline in a workflow scenario

You place one SetDeadline step in the workflow. You specify PrintJobs as the value of the Deadline step property. You specify Tomorrow as the value of the Deadline date property. You specify 5:00 PM as the value of the Deadline time property.

Linear PDF workflow

• SetJobPropsFromTextFile
• DetectInputDataStream
• CountPages
• SetDeadline: makes PrintJobs the deadline step; sets tomorrow at 5:00 pm for the deadline time
• PrintSetup: lets the operator verify that the requested paper is loaded in the trays
• CreatePageRanges
• PrintJobs
• RetainCompletedJobs
• RemoveJobs

With this workflow, you can see whether a job meets or misses its 5:00 pm deadline. If a job misses its deadline, RICOH ProcessDirector adds a red dot to the Schedule risk column for the job in the Jobs table.

A new customer asks if you can turn around jobs that arrive before noon on the same day, with later jobs finishing the next day. To accomplish this, you can use time of day deadlines in a conditional workflow. For example, you have a workflow with two branches.

• The connector to the first step in branch A has a rule with two conditions:
  • Current day = Today
  • Current time < 12:00 PM

    You specify that All of the conditions apply.

  When these conditions are met, the job is sent down branch A. The SetDeadline step sets the value of the Deadline time to Today at 5:00 PM.
• The connector to the first step in branch B has a rule with two conditions:
  • Current day = Today
  • Current time => 12:00 PM

    You specify that All of the conditions apply.

  When these conditions are met, the job is sent down branch B. The SetDeadline step sets the value of the Deadline time to Tomorrow at 5:00 PM.