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We are currently looking for a 3rd party task scheduler software that can help us manage jobs (mainly calls to exe files, like Windows Task Scheduler) with an easy to use GUI. We have a moderately complex flow tasks that need to be performed in the right order, and errors reported as fast as possible if any task fails, and the whole flow must be stopped and later restarted from the point of failure after the issue is dealt with.

The tasks are basically calls to executable (exe) files and possibly scripts, but also it would be great to have built-in tasks for error reporting (directly to Application Insights, or just plain REST API, and e-mail). The main thing though, is a robust and configurable task scheduler.

Software has to be robust, flexible and not so hard to configure. The flow it will manage is critical to our business.

Feature we are looking for:

  • Error reporting (via a web API and also e-mail)
    • If task takes too long, or does not start at all, or crashes
    • Ability to read error/crash data and attach it to report
    • Ability to restart process if it fails
  • Flow management (first do X, then do Y, and finally send a report)
  • Atomic operations (Don't start second job if first did not succeed)
  • Possibility to prevent overlapping tasks
  • Simple and easy to use Web GUI
  • No programming skills required

We will be running this software on a Windows server.

Thank you!

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  • What kind of software is being monitored? Perhaps something like n8n.io/integrations is what might be the answer for your usecase. You see it allows integrations and hence once the flow is created it can be used to achieve all of the above features.
    – techbolt
    May 27, 2020 at 13:13
  • @techbolt We would be running & monitoring plain exe files (console applications) written for .NET framework, maybe some scripts too. These different applications need to be run daily in a certain order as part of our business flow. Would I be able to do this with n8n? Seems cool either way btw, so thanks!
    – Shahin Dohan
    May 28, 2020 at 5:08
  • Ah in that case you should check Talend community.talend.com. It is a very mature project and while it's mainly used as Enterprise Service Bus it has modules that allow creation of simple flows. While I did not have specific requirement as yours I know that some basic modules on it can accomplish simulation of command prompt. Read about tSystem module for this. There will be a learning curve but it is a brilliant tool worth every second spent learning it.
    – techbolt
    May 28, 2020 at 6:43
  • @techbolt Doesn't seem to be quite what we're looking for... I'd rather go for a dedicated task scheduling solution that is also easy to use. Thanks for the input anyway!
    – Shahin Dohan
    May 28, 2020 at 11:11
  • Most of the features you need can be done using Automation Workshop. They also have a freeware version.
    – Maris B.
    Mar 3, 2021 at 9:46

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There have been no answers, so I'm going to at least write here what I ended up trying and liking.

The current candidate is WinAutomation. It has a very easy to use GUI, and also quite powerful, and the company was bought by Microsoft which is a good sign and also a small bonus for us since we have a Microsoft stack.

It doesn't have a Web client or a GUI to drag arrows from A to B, but those are not that important for us.

I also tried VisualCron and liked it, but the GUI was so much harder to use compared to WinAutomation. It has a web client though, which was really nice.

Here's a list of other software for those interested: List of job scheduler software.

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