Scheduled maintenance window is a time designated in advance, during which preventive maintenance that could cause service disruption is performed.
A single window may be associated with multiple services (e.g., when maintenance is performed on a piece of infrastructure underlying multiple services).
Nextian maintenance windows are stored in the custom Maintenance_Windows__c object:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Maintenance Window Name | User-provided maintenance window name. |
| Description | Optional, multi-line maintenance window description. |
| Start Date | Date and time when the maintenance window starts. |
| End Date | Date and time when the maintenance window ends. |
| Duration | Maintenance window duration (time span between maintenance start and end) expressed in days with fraction. |
| Is Active | Checked if the maintenance window is currently active, i.e., the current time is between Start and End dates. |
| Is Future | Checked if maintenance window’s start date is in the future, i.e., Start Date is greater than the current time. |
| Maintained Services | Number of services associated with the maintenance window. |
Maintenance windows and services
- When an active maintenance window is associated with a service, Undergoing Maintenance flag is set on the service.
- When maintenance windows become inactive, Undergoing Maintenance is automatically cleared.
- Undergoing Maintenance service list view shows all services currently undergoing maintenance.
- Maintenance Calendar is shown on service details view.
Service maintenance calendar - Maintenance windows associated with a service are also shown in the service details Related → Maintenance Windows.
Maintenance windows and accounts
- When an active maintenance window is associated with at least one service for an account, Undergoing Maintenance flag is set on the service as well as on the account.
- When maintenance windows become inactive, Undergoing Maintenance is automatically cleared (both occurrences).
- Accounts Undergoing Maintenance account list views shows all accounts that have at least one service currently undergoing maintenance.
- Maintenance Calendar is shown on account details view.
Updating services and accounts
Undergoing Maintenance flag on services and accounts is updated:
- When maintenance window record is updated (for all affected services and accounts).
- In the background by the BatchMaintenanceWindowsProcessor scheduled job (for time-based activating and deactivating of maintenance windows).
Maintenance Windows Calendar / Maintenance Calendar Synchronization with Outlook and Gmail
Maintenance windows are automatically added to the Maintenance Windows Calendar, a standard Salesforce calendar provided with the Nextian package:
- A calendar event is created for each new maintenance window.
- Maintenance window updates (such as changing the dates), are automatically reflected in the calendar (however the synchronization is one way — changes on the calendar events are not synchronized back to maintenance windows).
- When maintenance window is deleted, the corresponding calendar entry is deleted as well.
The maintenance calendar can be synchronized to Microsoft Outlook and Google Gmail with third party tools such as Salesforce Inbox.
