How to run a document generation with a scheduled task?

Using command line users can run Rational Publishing Engine automatically at a specific date/time.
We are using: RPE Command Line API, System command line and OS scheduled tasks

On Windows:

First, we are going to create a batch file. In this file we will run a document specification and move the outputs in a different location. The name of this location will be the current date.

"C:\Program Files\IBM\Rational\Publishing Engine\1.1.1.2\launcher\rpe-launcher.exe"
- publish "C:\temp\generatedds.dsx" -noresult

@echo off
setLocal EnableDelayedExpansion
for /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('echo %date%') do (
set YYYYMMDD=%%c%%a%%b
 )

MD "C:\temp\output\report_from_!YYYYMMDD!"

COPY /V /Z "C:\temp\output\" "C:\temp\output\report_from_!YYYYMMDD!"

MOVE /Y "C:\temp\output\img" "C:\temp\output\report_from_!YYYYMMDD!"

DEL "C:\temp\output\out.html"
DEL "C:\temp\output\out.css"
DEL "C:\temp\output\out.doc"
DEL "C:\temp\output\out.pdf"
DEL "C:\temp\output\out.fo"
RD /Q "C:\temp\output\img"

In 1st line and 2nd line we are running RPE launcher with publish argument to start the publishing process with a document specification file and noresult to avoid the results dialog to be shown.
In lines 4 – 8 we create a variable that will hold the current date of the system.
In line 10 we make a folder that will be named using the date variable.
In line 12 the outputs will be copied in the folder created in line 10. You need to specify in document specification file a folder where the outputs files will be created (just to know from where you can copy the generated files) – in our case is “C:\temp\output\”.
After this we will clean the output folder (lines 16 – 21).
To schedule this bat file to be run every day do the following:
Go to Control Panel -> Scheduled Tasks.
Add a new Scheduled Task.

Figure 1: Scheduled Tasks

Press Next button to select the program to run.

Figure 2: Select running program

Press Browse button to select the batch file.
Select when the file will be run.

Figure 3: When to perform the task

Press Next button, enter user’s password and finish the wizard.

Now this batch file will be runned every day and all your reports will be under C:\temp\$current_day.

On Linux :

Use crontab feature – which allows you to execute a specified command at set intervals. The intervals can be any valid combination of the arguments specified as the first five entries in a crontab line.

minute hour dom month dow user cmd

If you don’t wish to specify a value for a field, just place a * in the field.
E.g.:  30 3 * * * root cron.sh – this will run every day at 3:30 AM

For cron.sh:
crontab -e : edit your cron file
crontab -l : view your cron file
crontab -r : remove your cron file

In addition, Red Hat adds several directories:

/etc/cron.hourly/
/etc/cron.daily/
/etc/cron.weekly/

As their names suggest, executable files can be placed in any of these directories, and will be executed on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. This saves a bit of time when setting up frequent tasks; just place the executable script in the appropriate directory and forget about it. To get the date in format YYYYMMDD in Linux use ‘date + %Y%m%d’.