run script on timer

[bookouri]

I need to run a sql script at the same time every night. This script does a number of counts and sums of fields and stores the data collected in a table of "counts" i.e. the current number of patients at the time the script runs, the patient_sex, race, age, etc. That demographics data is then used for various reports, charts etc. later on. But that's how we determine our average daily populations.

What is the best and most reliable way to automate this? I have the choice of Oracle Developer, Oracle pl/SQL, VB, or Access to get this done.

Any suggestions would be appreciated....

 

[stevecal]

It depends. If you need it to run from external it depends on your operating system: with Linux/unix variants you'll use cron; with NT you'll use the AT command. Alternately you can use the Oracle internal dbms_job package to run timed jobs for you.