Logging and Monitoring Watch Folder Events

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista

Transform Manager can generate two types of logs:

• Job instance logs, which are per-job event activity logs.

• Watch folder job manager logs, which are watch-folder event activity logs.

Transform Manager can display the events that occur while a job is running and record these events in a job instance log file. You can specify the amount of job instance activity to be displayed or logged for all tasks that are run during a job by specifying an event logging threshold value. You can also configure these events to be included in job status notifications that are posted to Web applications. A job instance log is created when the job finishes.

Job manager activity can't be displayed in Transform Manager and can only be recorded to log files. You can specify the amount of job manager activity to be logged for all tasks that are run during a job by specifying an event logging threshold value. Because these log files can become large, you can also configure how often they are created by specifying a log rollover value. This causes an existing log to be written and a new log to be started when the rollover interval value is exceeded. If the rollover interval value isn't exceeded, new logs are still created when a watch folder is restarted.

The following topics describe how to manage log files, view job instance activity, and send job status reports:

• Specifying a Location for Log Files

• Specifying a Logging Threshold

• Specifying How Often Job Manager Log Files are Created

• Viewing Log Files

• Viewing Job Instance Event Activity

• Configuring Job Status Notifications

1. Select the watch folder in the Watch Folders page.
   
   
2. In the Actions pane, click Stop.
   
   
3. In the Actions pane, click Start.
   
   

Specifying a Location for Log Files

By default, Transform Manager creates the following directories that store watch folder job instance and job manager log files when a watch folder is started for the first time:

• Job instance logs. %LogFolderPath%\Job Instance Logs

• Job manager logs. %LogFolderPath%\Watch Folder Manager Logs

You can change the location of the %LogFolderPath% for a watch folder by doing the following:

1. In the Connections pane, click Watch Folders.

2. In the Watch Folders page, select a watch folder, and then in the Actions pane, click Edit.

3. In the watch folder property sheet, on the Basic Settings tab, in Log folder path, enter the rooted path of the log folder or click Browse to specify a shared folder on the computer or a shared network resource to use as the log folder. You can specify the following types of path values:

   • A local directory path (%SystemDrive%\%Directory%). The user account that the watch folder impersonates must have Full Control permissions for the folder.

   • The UNC path of a shared network folder (\\Share\Folder). Ask your network administrator to give Full Control permissions for the folder to the user account that the watch folder impersonates.

4. Click OK.

• %LogFolderPath%\WatchFolder1
  
  
• %LogFolderPath%\WatchFolder2
  
  

See Also

Viewing Log Files

Specifying a Logging Threshold

You can select event logging threshold values to specify the amount of event logging for all job instances that are running in a watch folder and for the watch folder's job manager. Job instance and job manager events at the selected event level (the threshold) and at higher priority event levels are logged. The event logging threshold levels that you can select (from highest to lowest priority) are:

• Off. Disables event logging.

• Audit. Indicates that an asset that was dropped in a watch folder was accessed.

• Critical. Indicates that an issue occurred and the application or task couldn't recover.

• Error. Indicates that an issue occurred and the application or task stopped running jobs.

• Warning. Indicates that an issue occurred that might impact functionality of the application or task if action isn't taken.

• Information. Indicates that a change in the application or task has occurred, such as an operation completed successfully, a resource was created, or a service was started.

• Verbose. Creates a full descriptive report of the event. Log files that record verbose events can be extremely large.

In addition to logging events to files at and above the specified threshold level, you can view the events in the following locations:

• Job instance events can be viewed on the Activity Log tab on certain Job Monitor pages in Transform Manager. For more information, see Viewing Job Instance Event Activity.

• Job manager events can be viewed in the Windows Event Viewer. Audit, Error, and Critical events are always displayed in Event Viewer, regardless of the selected setting.

To set event log threshold values for job instance logs and job manager logs, do the following:

1. In the Connections pane, click Watch Folders.

2. In the Watch Folders page, select a watch folder, and then in the Actions pane, click Edit.

3. In the watch folder property sheet, on the Advanced Settings tab, specify the following threshold values:

   • In Watch folder manager logging, select a value in Log threshold to specify the event logging threshold for watch folder job manager logs.

   • In Job instance log threshold, select a value to specify the event logging threshold for job instance logs.

4. Click OK to close the watch folder property sheet.

Specifying How Often Job Manager Log Files are Created

Job manager logs can store all of the events that occur for all jobs that are run in a watch folder. Because multiple jobs can run in a watch folder at the same time, these log files can become very large. To keep these log files to a manageable size, do the following:

1. In the Connections pane, click Watch Folders.

2. In the Watch Folders page, select a watch folder, and then in the Actions pane, click Edit.

3. In the watch folder property sheet, on the Advanced Settings tab, specify rollover values that configure Transform Manager to create new log files on a schedule. In Rollover interval, select a number in the box and then select the interval type (Minutes, Hours, or Days) in the list. For example, to specify that a new log file be created every 6 hours, select 6 in the box and then select Hours in the list.

4. Click OK to close the watch folder property sheet.

Viewing Log Files

After you start a watch folder, Transform Manager creates the following directories that store job instance and job manager log files:

• Job instance logs. %LogFolderPath%\Job Instance Logs

• Job manager logs. %LogFolderPath%\Watch Folder Manager Logs

To view the log files, you can navigate to %LogFolderPath% in Windows Explorer, or do the following:

1. In the Connections pane, click Watch Folders.

2. If the watch folder was previously started but is now disabled, select it in the Watch Folders page, and then in the Actions pane, click Enable.

3. In the Actions pane, click View Log Files.

See Also

Specifying a Location for Log Files

Viewing Job Instance Event Activity

A watch folder's job manager creates a job instance when a job is started. You can view the job instance event activity by doing the following:

1. In the Connections pane, click Job Monitor.

2. In the Job Monitor page, under Running Jobs, select a running job.

3. Under Job Details, click the Activity Log tab to view event activity for the running job.

You can also view job instance activity on the Finished, Failed, and Canceled pages (which are located under the Job Monitor page in the Connections pane in Transform Manager) because these jobs have been started. You can't view job instance activity on the Queued page because these jobs haven't been started.

• Only events for the selected job instance log threshold and higher priority event levels are displayed. If you disabled job instance event logging, an activity log isn't available to display. For more information about how to configure job instance event logging, see Specifying a Logging Threshold.
  
  
• The Activity Log tab on the Canceled page might not show any data if you cancel a job before event activity was recorded.
  
  

Configuring Job Status Notifications

IIS Transform Manager includes a notifications feature that enables remote monitoring of watch folder job status. You can configure notification options to include specific job status event data in an XML message body that's sent in an HTTP POST request to remote Web applications or services. To view a sample application of the notifications feature, see Sending Job Status Notifications to a Remote Web Application.

To configure notification options, do the following:

1. In the Connections pane, click Watch Folders.

2. In the Watch Folders page, select a watch folder, and then in the Actions pane, click Edit.

3. In the watch folder property sheet, on the Notifications tab, specify notification options:

   1. In Enter the URI to which notifications are sent, enter the URI of the Web application that will receive the data (for example, https://ServerName/PageName.aspx).

   2. Under Generate notifications for the following events, select from the following event types about which you want to receive data:

      • Submitted. The watch folder's job manager submitted a job.

      • Running. The watch folder's job manager started a job.

      • Canceled. A job was canceled.

      • Finished. A job was completed.

      • Failed. A job failed. To send additional information about failed jobs, select Include job instance log on failed jobs to include up to 32 kilobytes (KB) of job instance log information for the failed job in the HTTP POST message body.

• If you elect to send job instance logging data for failed jobs, set the Job instance log threshold for the watch folder to Error in order to include all of the error information in the HTTP POST message body. Setting the Job instance log threshold to a low threshold value, such as Information or Verbose, might cause some job instance log information to be lost due to the 32 KB content length limit. For more information about how to set the job instance log threshold, see Specifying a Logging Threshold.
  
  
• If you elect to send job instance logging data for failed jobs, and you receive the HTTP status code 404.13 ("Content length too large.") in a response, the Web application server is limiting the content length that's allowed in the HTTP POST. You can set the Job instance log threshold value to a higher threshold level in order to reduce the amount of data that's sent in the HTTP POST message body, or you can update the Web application server configuration to increase the maximum allowed content length. For more information about how to update the server configuration, see the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article: KB 942074.
  
  
• The HTTP POST request that contains the data is unauthenticated.