This is a OneAgent Extension that, given a list of Scheduled Tasks, is able to monitor their current execution state every minute and automatically raise Problems if any of these tasks have not completed successfully or are running past their expected execution timeout.

This extension creates two metrics that are used to track the State a task is in (ext:tech:tasks.task_state) and the Time since its last execution (ext:tech:tasks.time_since_exec).

The extension automatically raises Problems when a task did not finish with a positive result code or when it is still in Running state and the given timeout period has passed.

Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 and newer.

1. Deploy to OneAgent hosts

This extension is developed with the Dynatrace Extensions 1.0 Framework. This means that the .zip archive you have been provided with must be deployed on every OneAgent host that should run it.

Upload the .zip file and then extract it in the extension deployment directory on the OneAgent host. By default, this is found at:

• On Windows: %PROGRAMFILES%\dynatrace\oneagent\plugin_deployment
• On Linux: /opt/dynatrace/oneagent /plugin_deployment

2. Upload to Dynatrace

Once the extension is deployed to each OneAgent, this must also be uploaded to Dynatrace. Open the Dynatrace UI and navigate to Settings > Monitored technologies > Custom extensions tab, then click Upload extension and upload the same zip archive you have been provided with.

Once the extension appears in the list below you can move to the next step:

Levels of configuration

OneAgent extensions allow for two levels of configuration: global or per host. Every host capable of running the extension will use the global configuration unless it is configured to override it with its own configuration.

Configurations can be found in the following places:

• Global configuration: Go to Settings > Monitored technologies > Custom extensions tab and click on the extension name from the list. On the page that opens click Edit global configuration.

• Host-level configuration: Go to Hosts then click on the Host to configure. Click ‘…’ > Settings and expand the row with the extension name. Click Use host configuration.

Configuration parameters

Regardless of the option chosen above, the configuration is the performed the same way.

Configuration parameters explained:

• Tasks to monitor - Mandatory. The tasks that the extension should monitor, including an execution timeout.

Add each task on a new line, using the format {task-name}:{timeout} (e.g. MyTask:2)

• Date/time format - Mandatory. The format which your Windows system uses for representing date and time. Available format codes are detailed at this link.

Example common formats: * 24/03/2022 15:02:33 translates to %d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S * 03/24/2022 3:02 PM translates to %m/%d/%Y %H:%M %p

• Username - Optional. If the task information can only be read as a specific user, this field can be used to specify that user account. If needed, the domain can also be included with the format {domain}\{account}
• Password - Optional. If the task information can only be read as a specific user, this field can be used to specify the password needed for the account given in the username field.
• Manual collection mode - Optional. In highly locked down systems, the only way to retrieve the task details is by setting up a Scheduled Task to collect this information. If this is your situation, then check this box, and read the section below on how to complete such a setup.
• Data folder - Optional. In case the Manual collection mode was selected, this field specifies in which folder the data is being collected.
• Log Level - Optional. The extension supports a DEBUG level of information in case Dynatrace Support are required to perform troubleshooting. Unless requested to do otherwise, you can leave this as INFO.
• Allow merging events - Optional. When this feature is disabled (unchecked box), Dynatrace is forced to always open separate Problems for events raised by this extension. Otherwise, problems may be merged if common details are found.

Manual collection mode setup

In highly locked down systems, the only way to retrieve the task details is by setting up a Scheduled Task to collect this information. If this is your situation, then you need to create a Scheduled Task that runs every minute, and has the following Action configured:

• Action type: Start a program
• Program/script: powershell.exe
• Arguments: -Command "Get-ScheduledTask | Select TaskName, State | ConvertTo-Csv > C:\Temp\scheduledtasks.csv; Get-ScheduledTask | Get-ScheduledTaskInfo | Select LastRunTime, LastTaskResult, TaskName | ConvertTo-Csv > C:\Temp\scheduledtasksinfo.csv"

Note: the above example uses the C:\Temp directory to publish the collected data. This can be changed in the arguments of the task. Whatever directory you end up choosing, you must also add this in the Data folder configuration parameter of the extension.