Skip to main content

Manage properties, calendars, and tags

Three more Toolkit building blocks help you parameterize, schedule around holidays, and organize your work.

What this solves

Paths, environment names, and secrets get hard-coded into individual jobs, so one change means editing many places, and credentials end up sitting in plain job definitions.

Properties: reusable values​

A property is a named value (like a path or an environment name) you can reuse across jobs instead of hard-coding it. Mark a property encrypted to store a secret safely.

To create a property, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to Toolkit → Properties and select New Property.
  2. Set its name and value.
  3. Mark it encrypted if it's a secret.
info

An encrypted property's value is hidden after saving. That's expected. Use encrypted properties for credentials instead of putting secrets in job parameters.

caution
Don't start a property name with $

The $ prefix belongs to the platform's own system properties, and a bare $ name in a token is routed to the scope that owns it rather than looked up among your properties. So a property you call $JOB REPORT won't answer [[$JOB REPORT]] — it comes back unresolved. Name it without the $.

Leaving a value empty, and clearing one​

An empty value is allowed, and it means the setting is deliberately unset — a token naming the property resolves to an empty string rather than failing. The list shows it as (empty), so you can tell it apart from a value that was withheld. That is not the same as deleting the property: a token naming a property that doesn't exist fails the job it was written into. In a message — an event a job fires, or a notification — the same token comes through unresolved and the message is still sent, so a job parameter is the one place a missing property stops work.

To empty an encrypted property's value, use Clear stored value on its page and then save. You can't do it by blanking the field, because the field starts blank — its stored value is never shown — so a blank you simply left alone means "keep it".

Turning Encrypted off asks you for a new value

A stored encrypted value is never decrypted, so switching Encrypted off won't read one back for you. The save wants a new value to store as plaintext instead, and Save stays unavailable until you type one. Whatever you type is then visible to anyone who can view the property, and in reports.

Clear stored value isn't a way around that — a clear keeps the property encrypted, so the action is hidden while Encrypted is off. Emptying a value and un-encrypting one are two separate jobs.

Calendars: days to skip​

A calendar is a named set of dates (holidays, blackout days). Reference it from a frequency as an exclusion calendar so jobs skip those days, as an Annual Plan's own calendar so its dates are the run days, or from a workflow's schedule as its Additional Holiday Calendar.

To create a calendar, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to Toolkit → Calendars and select New Calendar.
  2. Give it a name and, optionally, a description.
  3. Add its dates — select days in the multi-month picker, or use Upload to bring them in from an iCal (.ics) or JSON file. Uploaded dates are merged with the ones you've already picked.
  4. Save.

The dates you've chosen are listed beside the picker with a running count. Remove one from its own row, or tick several and delete them together. To edit a calendar later, use Edit on its row menu (or double-click the row) — the same dialog opens.

Before you rename or delete one, use Cross Reference. A calendar is never referenced by a job, so the dialog lists the workflows and frequencies that hold it instead. Renaming is safe — the reference is stored by id — and deleting a calendar that is still in use is refused rather than quietly emptying a schedule. Delete makes that check for you: if anything holds the calendar, the confirmation lists it and the delete cannot go ahead.

Uploading a repeating event

An iCal recurring event contributes only its start date; the occurrences aren't expanded. Upload a file with the dates written out, or add the rest in the picker. The upload summary tells you how many dates were added and how many entries were skipped.

Tags: organize and find​

A tag is a label you apply to jobs (and other objects) to group and search them.

To create a tag, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to Toolkit → Tags and select New Tag.
  2. Apply it to jobs as you build them.
Good to know
  • Properties are workspace-scoped; calendars and tags are shared across workspaces.
  • Tags power filtering and global search, so a consistent tag scheme pays off at scale.
  • All three are tabs of the one Toolkit page, and each is created and edited in a dialog over its list. Save stays off until you've changed something, and a link straight to an item opens it.
  • Properties are the one Toolkit type with no Cross Reference view, so their delete runs no reference check. Check a property isn't still named by a token before removing it — a token naming a property that doesn't exist fails the job when it's dispatched.

Related topics