Events and Room Reserve Scheduled Task Setup for Email Notifications

To allow your Events system to send automatic upcoming event notification and reminder emails to subscribers and registrants, and allow your Room Reserve system to send automatic reservation reminder emails to bookers, you need to set up a scheduled task on the server where it is hosted.

Please note that this step is the last of four others required to make email configuration work. For your reference, please review these articles:

Core configuration: Email Server Settings
Other configuration: Email Settings
Review: Email Templates (Events), Email Templates (Rooms)
Enable Email Setting: System Settings (Events), System Settings (Rooms)

Configure the scheduled task on the new server:

1. Edit the Scheduled Task Batch file.

Use My Computer to browse to the evanced\lib folder created earlier.
Right-click on the "notify.bat" file and select Edit or Open With and select a simple text editor.
The batch file should contain the following line:

HttpRequester.vbs http://localhost/evanced/lib/eventnotify.asp?opmode=all

Edit this line to point to your installation. Mainly replace the "localhost" with the path to your web site.

2. Build the Scheduled Task.

(Please make sure to set up the task with highest privileges and that it runs whether user is logged in or not)

Open the Scheduled Task Wizard on the server. Typically this can be found under 'Start-->Control Panel-->Scheduled Tasks-->Add Scheduled Task'.
Select Next when the wizard starts.
Click on Browse and find the "notify.bat" file under the lib directory created earlier and select it.
Change the name of the task to something like "Evanced Notify", click Daily then click Next.
Select the time you want the notification script to run then click Next. Typically this is during a slow traffic time like 11:00 PM.
Enter a user name and password for an administrator account that does not change or remember to change this password whenever your security policy requires you to change passwords.
Click Next then click Finish.

Please note that the steps mentioned above for #2 will work for Windows Operating Systems like 2003 or older, however, newer Windows Server 2008 has a slight variation: When you get to the step where you need to specify the file that needs to be run by this task; instead of browsing for the file on the server, do the following in the respective fields:

Action: Select "Start a program" from the drop list.
Program/Script: Type "cmd.exe"
Add arguments: Type "/c notify.bat"
Start in: Type here the full path to the containing folder of the notify.bat file on your server. For example, it could be this "c:\inetpub\wwwroot\evanced\lib\" for the instance on hand. Do not forget about the back slash at the end.

3. Test the Scheduled Task

Right click on the scheduled task you just created and select Run.
If it runs with no more user interaction then it is installed correctly.
If it requires ANY user interaction then this must be addressed or it will not run automatically.
Here are a couple of items you may need to tweak. (It doesn't hurt to just apply these settings anyway). Right-click on the task and choose 'Properties'.

Within the 'General' tab of the Properties window, select 'Run whether user is logged on or not'.
Now put a check mark in the box for 'Run with highest privileges'.
Within the 'Settings' tab of the Properties window, change the drop-down list to 'Stop the existing instance'.
Remember to apply your changes.

NOTE: One common issues is a popup that requires user interaction to click on OK to continue running. If this window is displayed, be sure check the box for "Do Not Display This Warning Again". The server may also give a "Always show this message before running this type of file". Be sure to uncheck the box before hitting ok.

The key is to make sure the message does not repeat. Take whatever action necessary to be sure the message only displays once. Keep an eye on it for the following two days to be sure the task is running correctly.

Failure to check this box will cause the task to fail.