Problem with disable/enable and non-standard TTL

[Kauffman, Tom]

I have a nightly backup process that starts at 19:00 and runs about 3
hours. I need to know if it failed to start on time, ran too long, or
just plain failed.

I currently invoke a BB script at the start of the backup to set a value
of 'clear' with a 3 hour 15 minute TTL. When the backup finishes I run
another BB script that sets the proper color (green, yellow, or red)
with an expiration time that calculates to 19:05 the next night.

And I alert on red or purple.

The problem I run into with enable/disable is that setting ALL to
disabled and then re-enabling later looses the custom expiration time --
and 30 minutes after enabling the test, we start paging because the
backup hasn't run/finished.

Am I missing something? Is there a better way?

Tom Kauffman
NIBCO, Inc