VisualCron Editor's Review

VisualCron is a truly advanced task scheduler. It uses a client-server architecture, allowing you to manage scheduled tasks on remote computers. The client should be installed on the network administrator's computer. The server service must be running on all the computers that run the tasks. This software package is very flexible and can be configured quite easily considering the impressive number of available features.

The client application's user interface is nicely designed. You can easily create a new job, modify an existing job, see which jobs are running, and so on. When editing a job, you can assign a name and a description to help you easily identify each task.

The tasks triggers are separated into two types. 'Time' triggers allow you to specify a certain time and date when the task should be run. 'Event' triggers enable you to run a task when a file is created/changed/deleted/renamed, a process is started/ended, a service is started/stopped/pending, or when a registry key is changed.

It's also possible to define conditions for each task. For example, you can run a certain task when another one fails. Depending on which type you choose, you can also base your conditions on files, folders, processes, or VisualCron's logs.

Finally, the most important part is the one that allows you to define the actual task that must be run. I counted 43 types of tasks that can be run, including executing a file, copying files, pinging a server, sending an e-mail, running a SQL query, starting/stopping a service, playing a desktop macro, and many others.

Pluses: There are 7 possible notifications that can be used when a certain task is run. The most common are the simple pop-up message and the sound notification. The application can also send an e-mail notification or perform a certain SQL query or procedure.

Drawbacks / flaws:

In conclusion: VisualCron is really great. In my opinion this is a software package which is worth its money.

version reviewed: 5.5.3