Job status

What each job status means

Status	Set by	Meaning
Hold	You	Editable and not processed. A new job starts here, and stays until you set it to Ready.
Ready	You	Queued, waiting for the SMART Migration server to claim it and run it. Only a validated job can be Ready.
Deferred	You	Put off until later. Like Hold, it is never claimed.
Running	SMART Migration	The server has claimed the job and is working on it. The job is read-only.
Canceling	SMART Migration	A cancel has been asked for and the server is stopping the job.
Finished	SMART Migration	The run has ended. How it went — Ok, Warning or Error — is the run's Result.
Canceled	SMART Migration	The run was stopped before it ended.

A job only starts when three things are true

It is Ready and not disabled, its scheduled date has come — or it was set to Run now — and the SMART Migration server is running and connected. If a job stays on Ready, look at the Dashboard first: it says whether the server is in touch. The server also runs at most four jobs at a time, so a queue on Ready is normal while four are running.

Now or later: when a Ready job is picked up

Beside a Ready job's status, the Jobs table shows when SMART Migration picks it up, in the tree and the list alike, so what runs now stands apart from what waits:

Now, in a quiet green frame: its scheduled date has come. It runs as soon as the server has room.
A clock, in blue: its scheduled date is ahead. It turns to Now when the date comes.

A job set to Run now shows its place in the queue instead, and a disabled job shows neither. While SMART Migration Server is offline, the Ready status and its Now or Next up mark turn the red of the Offline mark: nothing runs until the server is back. To run a job with a date ahead straight away, use Run now.

Rest the pointer on a mark — Next up, a place in the queue, Now or the clock — or on the status itself, for the status card: under When it runs it says what the mark means, the date for the clock.

Rest the pointer on a status to see what it means

On the Jobs and Run History tabs, resting the pointer on a status opens a card that explains it in plain words — where the job or run stands, and what to do about it. For Canceling it says to wait: the SMART Migration server stops the run as soon as it can, in the middle of its work, and then marks it Canceled. A run stopped midway may leave the BI data incomplete or inconsistent: delete it from Run History to make the BI data consistent again. A click on the status pins the card, with buttons. On the Jobs tab they change the status — Hold, Ready, Deferred …, Finished Revert and Run now — or open the job and show its runs; on a job SMART Migration is working they open it, show its runs and, while it runs, Cancel job. On Run History they open the run's details, its session log or its job, and cancel it while it runs.

Important: the Dashboard's figures change only once SMART Migration has purged the runs. Refresh the report when the Power BI heading on the Dashboard shows a green Up to date instead of a red mark.

Change a job's status

In the table: the Status column of the Jobs tab — the ⋯ beside the status opens its menu, and a click on the status pins its card with the same choices as buttons. With several rows selected, the change applies to all of them. Under the statuses, its menu has the row menu's entries too — Edit, the job's runs, Copy link, Copy, Change selected jobs …, Delete … and New. Change selected jobs … is greyed out until two or more jobs are ticked. On a row that is part of a selection, it and Delete … act on every selected job, as the statuses do, and the entries for one job — Edit, its runs, Copy link, Copy — are greyed out.
In the job dialog: Job Status on the Job step, with the choice of Hold, Ready and Deferred.
For a selection or a whole group: tick the rows, or the group's box in the tree, and pick Change selected jobs … in the Actions menu and choose the status under Status. Jobs that are not validated, and jobs SMART Migration has started, stay as they are.

Status says that a job waits, not why. When you set a job to Hold or Deferred, write the reason in its Job Description or a tag such as Waiting, so no one sets it to Ready too early — My note is your own, and only you would read it there. See Organise the jobs of a project

Deferred asks for a note

In the Status column's menu, the Deferred entry ends in …: it opens a dialog before it changes anything.

Defer a job: the dialog says the job keeps its status until you save. Write in My note why it waits and when to look at it again, then click Save: only then is the job — with every selected job, when the row is part of a selection — set to Deferred, and the note kept. Cancel changes nothing.
One job: the dialog starts from the job's own note; emptied, the note is removed.
Several jobs: the note is written on every one of them; left empty, each keeps the note it had.
A job already Deferred: the same entry opens its note, to change it, and Save keeps it.
In the job dialog: picking Deferred under Job Status puts the cursor in My note about this Job, and the box flashes once; Save keeps the status and the note together.

The note is your own, as every My note is: other administrators do not see it.

Setting jobs to Ready

Setting jobs to Ready in the Status column, or with Change selected jobs …, asks first in the same way as saving one: it says which of them run now and which wait for a date ahead, offers Run now for those, and warns when SMART Migration Server is offline. Cancel leaves the jobs as they were. The message after it says the same in one line.

Saving a job as Ready

When you save a job as Ready in the job dialog — a new job, one you set to Ready, or one that is Ready already — a message asks you to confirm and says when SMART Migration picks it up:

Scheduled date passed: as soon as the server has free capacity — it runs at most four jobs at a time.
Scheduled date ahead: from that date and time, or as soon after as it has room. Save and run now runs it before then: the job goes first in the queue and starts as soon as the server has room, even when it is scheduled for tomorrow.
Server offline: the message says so, too — nothing runs until SMART Migration Server is online again.

The message saying the job was saved repeats it in one line: when the job runs, or — as a warning — that SMART Migration Server is offline and the job does not run until it is back. Cancel takes you back to the job with nothing saved. Tick Do not show this again to stop the message for you; other administrators still see it. Show hidden messages again on the Settings tab brings it back.

A job that is not validated cannot be set to Ready. A CSV Import job is never Ready either: SMART Migration does not run it, the job dialog imports its file. See Import jobs from a CSV file

Run now: put a job first in the queue

Run now, in the Status menu of a job's row — and in its row menu, its pinned card, the job dialog's Job Status choices and Change selected jobs … in the Actions menu for a selection — sets the job to Ready and puts it first in the queue. SMART Migration takes it as soon as it has room, before every other Ready job, whatever its scheduled date and its priority.

In the job dialog, Run now is picked like a status and done on Save: the job is saved Ready and put first in the queue, without the message that asks when it should run. It cannot be picked while the job is not validated, is disabled or is in the queue already, and says why.

The queue is marked in the table. Beside the status, the job SMART Migration takes next shows Next; when several jobs were set to Run now, the others show their place — 2, 3 … — in the order they were asked. The pinned card says the same.
Room, not interruption. The server runs at most four jobs at a time. Run now does not stop a running job: the job starts as soon as one of the four finishes.
Only a job that could run. It must be validated and enabled, and not already running. A disabled job has to be enabled first.
Back in line. Picking a status in the Status column's menu takes the job out of the queue — Ready too, which keeps the job Ready and lets it wait for its scheduled date again; the entry says so while the job is in the queue. Hold and Deferred take it out as well, and the claim does too. A recurring job then waits for its schedule again: the early run counts as the occurrence it was scheduled for, and the next one follows.
Server offline? When SMART Migration Server is not in touch, a message box says so: the job keeps its place first in the queue, but nothing runs until the server is online again. The Offline mark at the top right, and the Dashboard, say why. Do not show this again stops that message for you.

Disable a job

Disable job keeps a job's status — even Ready — but SMART Migration never picks it up until it is enabled again. Use it to take a job out of the queue without losing its place, or to switch off a recurring job for a while. Unlike an enabled Ready job, a disabled one can be deleted.

The switch sits beside the Job heading of the job dialog; for many jobs at once, tick them, pick Change selected jobs … in the Actions menu or a ticked row's menu, and choose Disable or Enable. Disabled jobs are marked in the table, and the Readiness filter shows them.

Cancel a running job

Cancel job in a running job's row menu — on the Jobs, Run History or Dashboard tab — asks SMART Migration to stop it. The job shows Canceling until the server confirms the stop, and then Canceled. Its run is recorded in Run History with what it did up to that point.

Put a finished job back

When a finished job has been set back to Hold or Ready by mistake, the Status menu offers Finished Revert, with the date the latest run finished. The menu shows each status as its pill, as the Status column does. It puts back the result of the job's latest run: nothing runs, and no run is added to Run History. It is offered only when the job's latest run of the mode it has now, in Run History, finished — for a job with Restore on, its latest restore run: a finished migration does not make a restore finished.

The job dialog's Job Status choices offer the same: Finished with Revert and the date, put back when the job is saved. Where it cannot be done, the choice is greyed out and says why.

Finished belongs to one mode

Finished and the result belong to the runs of the job's mode. When the job dialog changes a Finished job's mode — from Discovery to Migration, say — and leaves its status as it is, the job is saved Hold, and the Jobs table shows no result until a run of the new mode ends. Changed back, a job still on Hold is saved Finished again, with the result of its latest run of that mode, when that run finished. A status you pick in the dialog is saved as you picked it; while the mode is changed, the dialog offers no Revert. Change selected jobs … does the same when it changes the mode of many jobs. Switching Restore on or off counts as a change of mode: a finished migration is not a finished restore. See Restore

Statuses of a recurring job

A recurring job does not stay Finished. When its run finishes, it goes back to Ready with its scheduled date moved to the next occurrence, and waits for that date. See Scheduling, recurrence and priority

See also