Geneos - How to monitor Windows Scheduled Tasks using the Toolkit plug-in

Windows Scheduled Tasks includes a few methods to export its data, which can be through Windows GUI, schtasks.exe command or PowerShell cmdlets. The Toolkit plugin in Geneos can capture output of Windows commands. Here we have an example in VB Script to parse the output of schtasks.exe.

The toolkit configuration is as follows:

<sampler name="Scheduled Tasks">
<sampleInterval>
<data>600</data>
</sampleInterval>
<var-hideColumns>
<data>
<column>
<data>Power Management</data>
</column>
<column>
<data>Delete Task If Not Rescheduled</data>
</column>
<column>
<data>Repeat: Until: Time</data>
</column>
<column>
<data>Repeat: Until: Duration</data>
</column>
<column>
<data>Repeat: Stop If Still Running</data>
</column>
<column>
<data>Repeat: Every</data>
</column>
<column>
<data>Schedule</data>
</column>
</data>
</var-hideColumns>
<plugin>
<toolkit>
<samplerScript>
<data>c:\Windows\System32\cscript.exe /nologo taskscript.vbs</data>
</samplerScript>
<script>
<contents>
<data>function extractFieldValue(line)
s = split(line,&quot;:&quot;,2)
str = Replace(s(1), &quot;,&quot;, &quot;;&quot;)
extractFieldValue = trim(str)
end function

function extractFieldName(line)
s = split(line,&quot;:&quot;,2)
str = Replace(s(0), &quot;,&quot;, &quot;;&quot;)
extractFieldName = trim(str)
end function

jobfilter = &quot;Task&quot;

&apos;***** Run the command

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject(&quot;WScript.Shell&quot;)
Set oExec = WshShell.Exec(&quot;c:\windows\system32\schtasks.exe /query /fo list /v&quot;)

newline = &quot;&quot;
header = &quot;&quot;
first = 1

&apos;***** Process the output
Do While oExec.StdOut.AtEndOfStream &lt;&gt; True

sline=oExec.StdOut.ReadLine


if sline = &quot;&quot; then
&apos;****This is the line break
if newline &lt;&gt; &quot;&quot; then

if first = 1 and header &lt;&gt; &quot;&quot; then
&apos;**** Print column headers

header = left(header,len(header)-1)
wscript.echo header
header = &quot;&quot;
first = 0
end if

&apos;***Remove last comma
newline = left(newline,len(newline)-1)

if(InStr(newline,jobfilter) &gt; 0) then
wscript.echo newline
end if

newline = &quot;&quot;

end if

elseif (InStr(1, sline,&quot;Folder:&quot;) &gt; 0) or (InStr(1, sline,&quot;INFO:&quot;) &gt; 0) then

&apos;wscript.echo &quot;folder&quot;

elseif (InStr(1, sline, &quot;: &quot;) &gt; 0) then

newline = newline &amp; extractFieldValue(sline) &amp; &quot;,&quot;

if first = 1 then
header = header &amp; extractFieldName(sline) &amp; &quot;,&quot;
&apos;wscript.echo header
end if

&apos;wscript.echo extractFieldValue(sline)

end if
Loop</data>
</contents>
<filename>
<data>taskscript.vbs</data>
</filename>
</script>
</toolkit>
</plugin>
<dataviews>
<dataview name="Scheduled Tasks">
<firstColumn>
<create>
<columnName>Long Task Name</columnName>
<combineColumns>
<column>HostName</column>
<literal> </literal>
<column>TaskName</column>
</combineColumns>
</create>
</firstColumn>
</dataview>
</dataviews>
</sampler>

You will notice that there is a jobfilter = "Task" line in the script code. You can either remove / comment-out this line if you'd like to view all jobs or if needed, filter to a specific set task name. Removing this will display all scheduled tasks in the system.

(It's possible that the HTML may mess around with the XML formatting. If so, please see the attached file  "Scheduled_Tasks.xml.txt" which has the correct XML file.)