The Ares web server has a process called the Ares System Manager that handles several processes. Everything the System Manager processes happens nightly (once every 24 hours) with the exception of making items available, which happens by default every 60 minutes but can be changed in the Ares Customization Manager. The Link Checker, Item Cleanup, and copyright processes run once daily at a time specified in the Ares Customization Manager. The Copyright Clearance Center Check is also once daily and will process at any time between midnight and 5 am (windows server time).
It is checking for increases or decreases to copyright order fees and to return any updates on special requests made to CCC. You customize the Item Cleanup, Link Checker, and Copyright Clearance Center Check processes in the Ares System Manager. The item determined by the ItemActivationPendingProcessingInterval key. This process runs every 60 minutes.
Processes Managed by the Ares System Manager
Ares Email
The System Manager sends out all pending emails that are in the Ares system every two minutes. The Outgoing Email button, located on the System ribbon on the Home form, allows the Reserves staff a window into email activity via the Outgoing Email form.
Item Cleanup
When the System Manager checks for items to make available, it also searches for items that have reached their inactive date and remove them from reserves. Ares also gives you the option to remove electronic files associated with inactive items from the web server using the Item Cleanup tool. Using this tool, the System Manager runs a daily check for digital items that are a specified number of days passed the Inactive Date. If there are electronic files associated with the item, the System Manager cleans the files from the webserver, according to your settings, by either deleting them or moving them to another location (by default, to a C:\Ares\PurgedItems directory that you create). Student tags associated with items are also purged at this time. During the process, if other files are found that match the item number but not the extension, they are deleted. (This can occur if you upload two different types of files for the same item, such as a .doc and a .pdf). You can force the System Manager to run an off-schedule item cleanup by setting the ItemCleanUpRunNow key to Yes. Item Cleanup is configured in the Ares Customization Manager.
Course and User Loads
Ares can be configured to upload and maintain current course data (course, user and enrollment data) from your institution's registrar system.
Copyright Processing
If the System Manager is configured to update CCC copyright items, it will run a daily check to update copyright orders submitted for processing and flag to virtual status queues those items that have been granted copyright or had fees reduced. Copyright Processing is configured in the Ares Customization Manager.
As of Ares v5.0, the web DLL interactions with the CCC for CCC orders canceled by the instructor in Ares have been removed. This behavior was broken in Ares v4.7 and moved to System Manager in 5.0. The new behavior is as follows:
Daily Tasks
Daily tasks such as copyright processing, link checker, and item cleanup can run more than once a day if their RunTime customization key is changed to a new value at least one hour later than the previous value. For example, say link checker is set to run at 3:00 am and you decide at 10:00 am that you would rather have it run at noon. You can change the runtime to 12:00 pm and the link checker will run a second time at 12:00 pm rather than wait until noon the next day.