Schedule Blackout Dates

Schedule blackout dates are those dates on which schedules will not run and cannot be set to run. As a ReportCaster user, you can view schedule blackout dates that have been set for all users (global dates) and those set for the groups to which you belong. Only ReportCaster administrators and Managed Reporting Group administrators can define, update, and delete schedule blackout dates.

To view schedule blackout dates, click the Blackout Dates option in the ReportCaster HTML User Interface. The Schedule Blackout Dates interface opens to a calendar of the current year. The group drop-down list in the top left corner provides a list of groups to which you belong and includes a Global selection. This interface initially opens to the Global group and global blackout dates shaded in gray. An example of the Schedule Blackout Dates interface is shown in the following image.

To view the schedule blackout dates for a particular group, select that group from the drop‑down list. The calendar refreshes and in addition to the global blackout dates, it displays the group blackout dates in yellow. The following image shows a partial calendar of Schedule Blackout Dates interface for a selected group. For the month of April, it shows group blackout dates on the 23rd and 24th, and global blackout dates on the 25th through the 27th. Schedules cannot be run or set to run on these dates.

You can change the year using the arrows at the top right corner of the screen. Click Refresh to load the latest blackout dates. Dates only appear as available or unavailable.

Reference: Schedule Behavior for Blackout Dates

Blackout dates are enforced during schedule creation and at run time:

When creating or editing one of the date fields in a schedule, ReportCaster dynamically checks the first upcoming date on which the schedule will run to ensure that this date has not been blacked out. If there is a conflict with the date, an error message appears and the schedule cannot be saved until the conflict is resolved by either changing the schedule date or by not blacking out the date.
At run time, each schedule is checked against the list of blackout dates. If a blackout date has been defined for the scheduled date, the schedule will not run. If you enable notification, a notification is distributed indicating that the schedule did not run because of a defined blackout date.
Note: Schedule blackout dates for a specific user include the global blackout dates and the blackout dates assigned to the group(s) to which the user belongs.