Automating Vault Administration Tasks

The Vault Administrator is responsible for maintaining the health of the Vault.  The Vault’s health is a crucial element to proper data management and happy, stress free, vault use.  Having said that, the Vault Administrator is usually being hammered from all sides doing many other functions and helping many people with their IT and design needs.  The best way to maintain the health of your vault is to automate those administrative tasks with batch file routines that are run on a scheduled basis using your windows task scheduler.

The Connectivity.ADMSConsole.exe command can be used in conjunction with command line options to back up or restore a vault.  It can also Migrate data after installing a Hot Fix or an Update, Purge file versions, and Re-index File Properties (just to name a few).  The list of scripts for the Command Line Server Console can be found here.

Once you familiarize yourself with the Command Line options, you need to create batch files for the routines that you want to run on a scheduled basis.  Finally, establish your Vault Zen by automating the running of these batch routines through Windows Task Scheduler.  To schedule a batch file to run automatically, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Place your batch files in a directory of your choosing, ensuring that you have adequate permissions.

Step 2: Click on Start and under search, type in Task and click on the Task Scheduler.

Step 3: Select Create Basic Task from the Action pane on the right of the window.

Step 4: Type the name of the task and give a description. Click Next.

Step 5: In the Trigger section, choose the frequency with which you want to run the task. Click Next.

Fill in the appropriate information based on your frequency selection.

Step 6: Under Action, select Start a Program and click Next.

Browse to select the program you wish to run.

Step 7: Click Finish to create the Task.

Step 8: Ensure that the task runs with the highest privileges to ensure it does not fail. To do this, double click the task from the Task Scheduler Library, and in the General tab, select Run with Highest Privilege and click OK.

Automating your Vault maintenance will help you to effectively manage the proper health of your vault, while freeing up your time and allowing you to sleep at night, and not worrying about the health of your vault.