Cancelling Jobs

Overview

There are two kinds of Job Cancellations in Accelerator. This article will provide you with the process of how to cancel a Job as well as the differences between the two methods of cancelling a job.

Types of Job Cancellations 

There are two types of job cancellations:

1. A Job is cancelled before sending the Cloud Job launch request. The cancel is performed while recipient (or context) data is being extracted. The job does not make it to the MessageGears Cloud environment.
   
   One good way to confirm that a job has launched is to locate the Request ID that is found at the top of the Job page. This value uniquely identifies a Job. A Request ID is given to a Job only after extracting records from the Audience and sent to the MessageGears cloud environment to contact customers.
2. A Job is cancelled after sending the Job Request to the MessageGears Cloud environment. Any user with access to the Job page can pause or cancel a Job.

How to Cancel a Job

To launch a Campaign, open a Campaign to the Campaign Overview screen and select the Launch button in the top right.

Launching a Campaign will first prompt the user to confirm the launch.

Once confirmed, the Campaign launches a Job. The user is directed to a Job Analytics screen that shows the current state of the Job. The Job Analytics screen displays a lot of information about the Job, including the current state of the Job and the status of the contacts that have already been sent by the Job.

The state of the Job is found in the top right of the screen. A Job starts in an Initializing state. The possible states a Job can be in are:

• Initializing - The extraction of records from the Audience. This is the only state that a Job can be cancelled in before the extraction completes.
• Processing - The Job instructions and contact records are being transferred to the Cloud environment.
• Collecting - Contacts have been sent and the Job is collecting the results. This step can last up to 30 days as contact data continues to be sent back to the Job. These contact results are Deliveries, Opens, Clicks, Attrition, Bounces, and Suppressed.
• Completed - Job is done collecting data and will no longer receive updated results.
• Paused - The Job has been stopped, but not cancelled. It can be resumed.
• Failed - The Job will not continue to process. A Job can enter a Failed state if cancelled, the Template or Campaign was configured incorrectly, or included SQL is not correct.

To cancel a Job, select the Initializing Job state and use the drop-down menu.

Selecting one of these options from the dropdown may not appear immediately, but a message will display on the screen to acknowledge the selection. 

If trying to cancel a Job, the Job must be paused first. 

Results of Cancelling

Extraction Cancel

If cancelling a Job during the extraction of records and before sending the Job Request to the MessageGears Cloud environment, then the Job is stopped before launching the Campaign. Because the MessageGears environment does not receive instructions to Launch the Campaign, no records are contacted.

In order for an Extraction Cancel to occur, the Job must be cancelled before the extraction of data finished. The window of time to cancel a job in this manner can be very small depending on the complexity of the Job.

An email notification is sent to the Campaign’s Notification Email Address.

Job Cancel

This is the most common form of Job Cancellation. This type of cancellation can happen after the extraction of Audience records is complete and sent to the MessageGears Cloud environment. This method of cancellation will not stop all records from being contacted. As soon as records are extracted and the Job begins, a batch of records are sent to be contacted. Pausing the Job at this point will send instructions to the Cloud Environment to stop processing records, but it will not stop contact for any records currently attempting delivery

When a Job is cancelled in this way, no email notification is sent to the Campaign’s Notification Email Address.

Pausing vs Cancelling

A Job must be paused before it can be cancelled. A paused Job can be resumed and continues processing the records that have not been processed yet.

If cancelling a large job (more than 10 million records), please pause the job and reach out to MessageGears support at support@messagegears.com. You should also reach out to MessageGears support if help is needed in pausing a job, and remember to always provide the RequestID for a Job when reaching out to support for quick help.

Deleting a Job

It is not recommended to delete a Job in Accelerator. When deleting a Job, it can no longer be accessed through the Accelerator interface.