Introduction to Control-M Folders | Generated by AI
Question: Give a comprehensive introduction to folders in Control-M.
Answer:
In Control-M (a workload automation and job scheduling tool from BMC), a folder is a fundamental organizational container used to group related jobs, subfolders, and flows (dependencies).
Folders help manage complex workflows by allowing logical grouping, centralized configuration, and inheritance of settings to child objects (jobs and subfolders).
Main Purposes of Folders
- Group related jobs together (by application, department, business process, geography, customer, etc.)
- Define common settings once at the folder level instead of repeating them on every job
- Enable inheritance → jobs and subfolders automatically inherit many properties from their parent folder
- Support complex scheduling, prerequisites (events/resources), post-execution actions, and notifications for entire groups of jobs
- Improve visibility, maintainability, and understanding of workflows in large environments
Main Folder Types
| Type | Description | Scheduling & Inheritance | Most Common Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| SMART Folder | Full-featured folder (default and recommended type) | Supports full scheduling, events, resources, etc. at folder level → inherited by jobs/subfolders | Most production workflows |
| Regular Folder | Basic grouping container | No inheritance of scheduling/prerequisites from folder level | Very simple static groupings |
| Simple Folder | Minimal container (mainly used in Automation API / JSON definitions) | No folder-level configuration possible | API/script-based simple deployments |
| Subfolder | Folder nested inside another folder or subfolder | Inherits most settings from parent SMART folder, but has some limitations | Hierarchical organization (e.g. Dept → Team → Process) |
SMART folders are used in the vast majority of real-world Control-M implementations.
Key Properties and Settings (mainly SMART Folders)
- General attributes
- Folder name (must be unique within Control-M/Server)
- Description
- Application / Sub-Application (logical tagging)
- Priority
- RunAs (default user/account)
- Time Zone
- Site Standard (compliance tagging)
- Business fields (custom metadata)
- Scheduling (When)
- Days of week, month days, months
- Rule-based calendars (RBC), calendars
- Specific dates, exceptions
- Active retention policy (how long to keep non-ok jobs active)
- Order method: Automatic (daily) or Manual
- Prerequisites (controls whether folder can start)
- Events / Wait for events
- Resources (quantitative, lock/mutex)
- Host groups / Agents
- Max days to wait, confirmation calendars
- Post-execution Actions
- On OK / Not OK: shout messages, notifications, add/remove events, run corrective jobs, force OK, etc.
- Flow / Dependencies
- Defined inside folder using Flow object (predecessor → successor relationships)
- Can connect jobs across subfolders
- Variables
- Folder-level variables that can be used in jobs
- Other
- Notifications
- Rerun settings
- Adjust events behavior
Folder → Job Inheritance Rules (SMART Folder)
Most folder-level definitions (scheduling, events, resources, notifications, RunAs, Application, variables, etc.) are inherited by:
- All jobs directly in the folder
- All subfolders
- All jobs inside subfolders
You can override any inherited setting at the job or subfolder level when needed.
Practical Organization Examples
- Finance_EndOfMonth (SMART Folder)
- Finance_US (subfolder)
- Process_Raw_Data
- Calculate_Salaries
- Update_GL
- Finance_Australia (subfolder)
- Process_Raw_Data
- Calculate_Payroll
- Update_GL
- Finance_US (subfolder)
All jobs can inherit the same “End of Month” calendar and “wait for EOM confirmation event” from the top-level folder.
Summary – Why Folders Matter
- Reduce duplication → define schedule, events, notifications once
- Improve governance → consistent tagging (Application, Business fields)
- Enable hierarchy → complex business processes
- Make large environments understandable → grouping replaces chaos
Folders (especially SMART folders) are one of the most important concepts for building maintainable, scalable Control-M workflows.
References:
- Introduction to Control-M - BMC Documentation
- Folders and Flows - Control-M SaaS Automation API
- Creating a Folder - BMC Documentation
- Folder - Control-M Automation API Documentation