How can I logically or time dependencies of different types?
Step-by-step guide
It is important to understand how time dependencies work first.
When we have multiple time dependencies of the same type, they are 'or' ed. i.e.
time 10.00 time 12:00 # Task will run when time is 10:00 OR 12:00
Likewise, if we have:
date 1.12.2012 date 2.12.2012 # Task is free to run only on first or second of December.
When *different* types of time dependencies are added to the same Node, then the task is only free to run when both are satisfied:
time 10:00 date 1.12.2015 # task is only free to run at 10 am on the first of December
This effectively means that mixed time dependencies are logically 'and'ed.
Now suppose we wanted to run the task, at 10.00 *OR* when the date is 1.12.2015.
There are two approaches:
For real-time, use the suites times based variables. For further example see: Time Triggers
trigger TIME >= 1000 or ECF_DATE == 20151201
Place each time attribute under a dummy task, and use a trigger
task dummy_time_trigger edit ECF_DUMMY_TASK "" # Tell server & checking not to expect .ecf file time 10:00 task dummy_date_trigger edit ECF_DUMMY_TASK "" # Tell server & checking not to expect .ecf file date 1.12.2015 task time_or_date trigger dummy_time_trigger == complete or dummy_date_trigger == complete
By using a combination of a dummy task and trigger, we can achieve the effect of 'OR' in time dependencies of different types. This technique will work for any complex dependency and has the added advantage of allowing us to manually free the dependencies via the GUI.