Is it possible to accept tasks but automatically suspend old tasks in place of newly added tasks that have much earlier deadlines?

On the client?

This is a client-side function that already exists (well, so of).

The client normally runs in First-in, First-out mode
If a task is detected by the client as probably not going to complete in time if it runs in sequence the it is promoted to run early, thus (hopefully) complete in time.

This has to be a client-side function because the client knows what work it has in hand, but the individual project servers only know about the work they have sent out.

I found the original question ambiguous. It could be a client-side question, but it's unusual for someone to go right down to the bottom of the list and pick the server area for those. He could just as easily have been referring to Prioritizing jobs in a multi-user project. That's server documentation, and the 'users' in this case are the research scientists.

In server land, the task deadline is known as the 'delay_bound', and is set in the input template. I don't know enough about user accounts and input templates to comment about how the delay bound and the job priority could be made to interact dynamically.

Theres some flags that you can work with for the feeder here: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/BackendPrograms

Is there a setting somewhere that can change the 'first in/first out' operation of the client? I frequently find myself suspending tasks more recently downloaded in order to make sure older tasks complete successfully on time.

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D Lambert
Chemainus, BC
Canada