Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise and IBM i: The Right Enterprise Scheduling Team

Are you contemplating Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise for your IBM i server(s)? Using Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise does force the issue of having multiple server teams represented at the same meetings, which may not be the easiest thing to do. The IBM i part of the house might think it’s best to look at Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise by themselves, but eventually you need to get all of the interested parties involved.

So, if you’re using Robot/SCHEDULE and are thinking about Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise, I have two suggestions:

First, if you’re still using the green screen interface, switch to the Robot/SCHEDULE Explorer (the graphical interface). Otherwise, you’ll get nowhere with the rest of the enterprise teams. Because many Windows users still think of Robot/SCHEDULE as green screen, they can be hesitant to even look at Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise. We can help—we often use WebEx to demonstrate Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise for the entire organization and show how easy it is to navigate the graphical interface.

Second, involve the other teams in your initial meetings. Including the staff members from other platforms makes it much easier to convince everyone that managing the job schedule from the IBM i platform makes sense. Often, Windows, UNIX, and IBM i teams report to different managers, or have different agendas. For enterprise scheduling projects, invite at least one member of each team to the meetings to hear their concerns.

And, don’t worry—user interface, security, and availability are three strengths of the Robot/SCHEDULE Enterprise/IBM i team.