Tasking requests can be rejected because the new request conflicts with one or more of your organization’s currently accepted tasks. If a tasking request is rejected due to conflicting tasks, the task status will be Rejected with the additional message that "The tasking system is unable to schedule the tasking request due to conflicting tasks".
Conflicting tasks information is generated for single tasking requests and individual tasking requests generated by a repeat series.
Basic information about the conflicting tasks will also be returned in order to help you decide if you want to cancel an existing task(s) to make room in the Scheduler for the new tasking request or resubmit the task with different parameters. See the "Acting on Conflicting Tasks" section below for more information.
Notification about the existence of conflicting tasks is limited to your organization only. No task information is available to other Capella Space customers, even if your task conflicts with theirs or vice versa. Please note, a user will see basic information about all the conflicting tasks within their organization even if they are not the submitting user.
Conflicting Task Information in Console
If a task is rejected due to conflicting tasks, a unique email notification will be sent to the submitting user and the Task Details page will display information about the conflicting tasks. This information includes:
- Task Name
- Tasking Request ID
- Window Open
- Window Close
- Task Status
- Task Tier
- Task Type
In Console, a user will only be able to click on tasks which they have submitted to see more information, but will not be able to open tasks which they have not submitted. Those tasks will appear grayed out in the table. Users will need to speak with their Organization Admin to see more information about the conflicting tasks or make the decision to cancel.
An additional navigation header has also been added to the Task Details page at the top left when navigating to a conflicting task from the task conflicts table. This provides the user with a breadcrumb trail back to the rejected task.
In addition, when a task is rejected because it conflicts with another task submitted by the user’s organization, a summary of that information is included in the email notifying the user of the latest task status.
This information can also be pulled from the API.
Acting on Conflicting Task Information
When a tasking request is rejected due to conflicting tasks, you can decide to cancel a conflicting task using the tasking request ID to make room in the schedule for your new tasking request. Once canceled, you can resubmit the rejected task.
Tasking requests can be canceled up to 3 hours prior to the scheduled collection time. The cancelation of a conflicting tasks and submission of a new tasking request should be done in the same 15-minute window to ensure the Scheduler picks up both requests in tandem. The Scheduler update runs at 00, 15, 30, and 45 minutes past the hour and updates based on information submitted within the following windows: 00:00-00:15, 00:15-00:30, 00:30-00:45, 00:45-00:60.
Cancelation of a previously accepted task to accommodate a new tasking request does not guarantee the new request will be schedule. For example, another customer’s tasking request may still be slotted in ahead of your new request(s) due to an earlier submission datetime, a higher collection tier, or a shorter duration window. If the canceled task is still needed, it is best to resubmit the canceled task at a Tasking Tier of lower importance and/or with a longer acquisition window duration than the task of higher importance.
Please note, if the conflicting task is part of an area (polygon-based) task that has already started collecting, the conflicting task cannot be cancelled. A child task from a repeat task series or the entire series can be cancelled. It is not recommended to cancel the entire repeat task series.
Another option is to use the information about the conflicting task(s) to change parameters of the rejected task such as the collection tier (“collectionTier”) or window close (“windowClose”) and resubmit to see if the scheduling system accepts the new tasking request. For rapid resubmission, you can use the Retask function.