Automatically handling job and trigger changes in Quartz.net using AdoJobStore

Question

I am writing a Quartz.net application using AdoJobStore to allow automated report scheduling.

In my scenario, users will define custom reports to be scheduled in one application which will add the required jobs and triggers to the database (using the AdoJobStore routines).

A separate Quartz.net application then reads these settings from the database (also using the AdoJobStore routines) and emails the reports as necessary.

Is there a way to get the quartz scheduler to automatically start scheduling new jobs and triggers that have been added to the database after the scheduler last started, or will I need to write a routine that periodically checks for database changes, and if found restart the Quartz scheduler instance?

Answer 1

You can handle all of this directly with Quartz.Net. Here's one way to do it:

1. Set up a Quartz.Net server as a windows service. The distribution comes with a Windows Service implementation, or you can build your own. Enable remoting on the quartz server.
2. From the application where users will configure their reports and schedules, connect to the Quartz.Net server using the Quartz.Net library and directly schedule the jobs and triggers as necessary.
3. You'll probably want to store the user's report configuration elsewhere in case the user wants to look at it later or change/copy it. Store this data somewhere else other than Quartz.Net. If the user changes the stored report configuration, connect again to the Quartz.Net server and update/reschedule the jobs using the Quartz.Net library. Alternatively, you could create a job that runs on the Quartz.Net server and periodically checks whether there have been any report configuration changes.
4. You'll have to create the actual jobs that will generate your reports in a generic enough fashion so that any report can be built by passing in data to job via the JobDataMap, instead of having to create a job for each report.