Schedules can be used to automatically run a Workflow, or several Workflows in a specific order, at regular intervals.

Define a Schedule

To create a Schedule:

  1. Go to Automations.
  2. Go to Schedules.
  3. Click Create new Schedule.
  4. Enter a name.
  5. (Optional) Enter a summary (this will appear in the Schedules list) and a longer description.
  6. Select one or more Workflows. Workflows will be executed in sequence; if one fails, subsequent Workflows will not run.
  7. Click on Sources/Parameter to configure replaceable sources and re-configurable Workflow parameters of the Workflow.
  8. Optional sources or parameters will use the configured source or value for the schedule execution, otherwise the default value will be used.
  9. Click Apply to save the Source/Parameter configurations and return to your Schedule detail.
  10. Enable or disable Refresh sources.
  11. Specify when and how often you want this scheduled job to be run.
  12. Click Apply to save your changes or Apply and enable to save changes and activate the Schedule.

The Schedule will appear in the Schedules list where you can see when the Next run will occur, or "Not Enabled" if the Schedule has not yet been activated.

To stop an active Schedule, click Options > Disable.

Using a CRON expression

A CRON expression is a string of either 6 or 7 fields, separated by white space, that can be used as a shorthand way of defining a recurring schedule.

To create a CRON expression use the following fields:

Field Required? Allowed Values Allowed Special Characters
Seconds Required 0-59 *-/,
Minutes Required 0-59 *-/,
Hours Required 0-23 *-/,
Day of month Required 1-31 ?*-/,LW
Month Required 1-12 or JAN-DEC *-/,
Day of week Required 1-7 or SUN-SAT ?*-/,L#
Year Optional 1970-2099 *-/,

Some example CRON expressions:

  • 0 0 0 1W * ? 2022 will run at midnight on the first weekday of each month in 2022.
  • 0 15 0 1/2 * ? will run at quarter past midnight every other day (for the current year).
  • 0 0 9-17 ? * MON-FRI * will run every hour between 9AM and 5PM, Monday to Friday.
  • 0 0 0 ? * 2#1 * will run at midnight on the first Monday of every month.
  • 0 0 0 14W * ? * will run at midnight on the closest working day to the 14th day of every month, which could be before or after the 14th.
  • 0 0 0 4/14 * ? * will run every 14 days starting on 4th of the month. Executions could happen on any day, including weekends.
  • 0 0 3 ? * 6L * will run at 3AM on the last Friday of every month.

Running a Schedule

As well as running at the defined interval, a Schedule can be run as a one-off event for immediate execution in two ways:

  1. Clicking Options > Run now from the Schedules list.
  2. Using a Schedule in as the action triggered in a Notification.

When you click on the Run now, a Run Schedule dialog will appear, and you can specify the execution details for each Workflow in the Schedule such as version, sources and parameters.

The Version to run setting determines whether to execute using Draft or Published versions of the Workflows.

You can also select Prefer drafts or Only use published dependencies to run. This setting decides whether to execute the Workflows using unpublished dependencies, such as Views and Functions.

By ticking Refresh sources, the source that allows auto-refresh will be refreshed from their external source prior to execution.

You may need to configure the replaceable sources for each Workflow in the Schedule (if available).

The source replacements that you have defined in the schedule will be populated here, but you can still replace it with an uploaded dataset from the dataset list and perform column mapping if the selected source have different/ missing columns.

Optional sources will use the configured source for execution, otherwise the default source will be used.

You may need to configure the re-configurable Workflow parameters for each Workflow in the Schedule (if available).

The parameters' value that you have defined in the schedule will be populated here, but you can still replace it with other value.

Optional Workflow parameters will use the configured value for execution, otherwise the default value will be used.

Go to Jobs to review the status of running and completed job. For Workflow executions triggered by a Schedule, the Initiated by column will indicate which Schedule initiated the job. Click Show Job on the job to see more information such as the status and duration.