A file alert usually reports something that happened: a new file arrived, a file was deleted. Some of the problems that matter most run the other way – the overnight export that no longer lands, the scanner that has stopped dropping files, the supplier feed that dried up over the weekend. The Cadence Watcher, new in ShareWatcher 7.3, raises an alert when a watched folder goes quiet.
Silence is the harder thing to notice
A feed that stops leaves the folder exactly as it was, and the gap tends to surface hours later, when someone goes looking for the report that should have been there.
How a quiet folder becomes an alert
A deadline for each folder
The watcher is set for one folder at a time. On a folder watched for new files, the deadline is the longest gap between arrivals you are content with, in Minutes or Hours, and every new file the folder finds resets it. That is what keeps a busy folder quiet in the log and lets a stalled one come through.
Polled folders and live folders
The same watcher is available on Polled and Live Folder Monitoring. A polled folder is searched on a schedule, so its deadline is set to at least the polling interval, because the sweep is what finds the file. A live folder is told about each event as Windows raises it, so any deadline from one minute upwards suits it. On a live folder the watcher is set on whichever file event that folder is watched for, such as New or Deleted, and each of those events keeps its own deadline, which starts again every time that event happens.
The folders it covers, at a glance
In the Folders to Watch grid, the Cadence icon is blue where the watcher is on and grey where it is off. The Cadence Watcher follows the folder it belongs to, so it watches while the Enabled tick on that folder’s own Add or Edit window is set – the Status column shows which folders are switched off.
What an alert says, and where it appears
Every cadence alert is written to a Current Log, in a row carrying ** Cadence Watcher ** where a file name would go: Polled Monitoring’s own Current Log for a polled folder, and that file event’s own Current Log for a live one. The same message goes to every Action, and it names the folder, how long it has been quiet and the deadline you set.
A two-hour deadline with hourly repeats
- The deadline passed: No New File event in \\server\Exports for 2 hours (expected at least every 2 hours).
- A repeat: Still no New File event in \\server\Exports - nothing for 3 hours (expected at least every 2 hours).
- Files started arriving again: New File activity has resumed in \\server\Exports after 5 hours 12 minutes with none.
How the alert reaches you
The Cadence Watcher has its own Actions list, kept apart from the Actions that run when a file arrives, so a folder can email one person when a file arrives and someone else when nothing does. It offers the four Actions that carry a message:
- Add Email emails the alert.
- Add Event writes the alert to the Windows event log, where a monitoring tool can pick it up.
- Sound plays a sound on the machine ShareWatcher is running on.
- Custom Command runs a command of your own, so the alert can raise a ticket or call a script.
The Actions are what deliver the alert, so ShareWatcher asks you to confirm when a Cadence Watcher is saved with all of them switched off.
When the alert fires, and how often
On duty when files are due
Most feeds have hours they are expected in, and silence outside those hours is normal. The Only Watch During group puts the watcher on duty only when arrivals are due: a weekday feed leaves Sat and Sun clear, and Only between narrows the duty to a time of day. An end time earlier than the start crosses midnight: 22:00 to 06:00 covers the night and finishes on the following morning. Tick that following day as well, because the morning hours belong to the day they fall on.
Reminders with a cap
The first alert says the deadline passed, and on its own that is the only one you get. Tick Repeat the alert every to be reminded while the folder is still quiet, and each repeat says how long the folder has been silent by then. The cap set in but stop after … repeats covers the whole outage rather than each day, so a feed that is dead all week reports on Monday, sends the repeats you asked for, and then waits quietly.
An all-clear when files come back
Tick Also alert me when files start arriving again where knowing that a feed recovered matters as much as knowing that it stopped, because the alert itself is raised at the start of the silence. The folder stays in alert throughout the outage, so the all-clear still arrives when files come back, saying how long the folder was quiet.
Checked before it saves
A plain English summary at the foot of the window rewrites itself as you work, so you can see at a glance that the rule you built is the rule you meant. A Cadence Watcher that can never fire looks exactly like one that is covering the folder, so the settings are checked as you press OK and anything out of reach is named while you are still in the window, such as a deadline longer than the stretch the watcher is on duty for.
A clock that counts watched time
- The clock runs while ShareWatcher is open and starts again from the moment the application opens, so an alert covers time ShareWatcher was there to watch.
- Pressing OK on the Cadence Watcher restarts that folder’s clock, so a new deadline takes effect straight away.
- ShareWatcher is designed to run in the background, so Run at Startup is the recommended setting, and Start Application as a Service when Computer Starts suits server installations where a user is not expected to log in on server reboot.
Which licence you need
The Cadence Watcher comes with a Pro licence or above. Actions come with a Pro licence or above, on Polled and Live folders alike. Running ShareWatcher as a Windows Service comes with a Server licence or above. The Free licence also offers a fully functional 30-day trial of every feature. See Licensing and the feature list for the full comparison.
Try the Cadence Watcher free for 30 days
One download, fully functional.
Step-by-step guides
Each guide sets the watcher up one step at a time, for a file drop, a backup or a scanner folder, and the manual’s Cadence Watcher pages for polled and live folders describe every setting.
