APPLICATION DESIGN


Agents
Agents are stand-alone programs that perform a specific task in one or more databases. Agents are the most flexible type of automation because they: Because agents are so flexible and powerful, you might consider their characteristics first to decide the type of agent you want to build, and then build it.

The Agent Manager supports all aspects of running and troubleshooting agents. The Agent Manager checks security, manages agent scheduling, monitors events and starts the appropriate agents when their associated events occur, records information in a log (the Agent Log), and performs database operations to run the automated tasks associated with the agent. Although you donft work directly with the Agent Manager, you use its components for troubleshooting an agent.

When to use agents

Use agents for database-wide and domain-wide automated tasks and for complicated automated tasks. You can use them to easily access, process, and manage data on other servers or in other databases.

See "Agents to run before Web users open or save documents" for an example.

Notes on agents

Some databases and templates have built-in agents. For example, the mail template has several built-in agents that let users manage their messages and customize their mail databases.

To see the agents in a database, open Code in the Applications Navigator and double-click Agents.

See Also