Scheduled Tasks

Scheduled Tasks are pipelines that run on a schedule. You can create a Scheduled Task in Designer or Project Manager. In Designer, you can:
  • Create a task in an open pipeline
  • Schedule it for a one-time execution on a specific date and time
  • Set it to recur at intervals
  • Follow a complex schedule like a cron job
Alternatively, you can create or update a Scheduled Task in Project Manager and assign the underlying pipeline to it. Once created, you can monitor Scheduled Tasks in the Monitor.

Key features

  • Advanced Scheduling Logic for Repeatable Jobs: Create Cron jobs based on calendar dates, clock time, frequency, end dates, and across time zones.
  • Blackout Dates: Set exceptions for dates when the pipeline should not be invoked, useful for planned outages or holidays.
Note: Task Queuing is a new feature that improves the resiliency of Scheduled Task executions. Learn more.

Prerequisites

  • You must have permissions to Project Space and Project to create and update Scheduled Tasks
  • You must have a Cloudplex or Groundplex set up to run Scheduled Tasks successfully.
  • The Snaplex owner must either have execute permission on the Projects where the Scheduled Tasks are defined or be a member of the Admins group.

Support and limitations

  • A Scheduled Task can take up to 10 minutes past the scheduled time to execute. If it misses that window, the task does not execute.
  • If a pipeline run is skipped because another instance is already running, the job history shows only the first skip. Subsequent job skips do not appear in the job history.
  • If you open a Scheduled Task seconds after updating it, the UI might display the This task is not scheduled to run message, because the update can take time for the Snaplex to compute the next runtime.

Known issues

  • Time Zone Discrepancy: When selecting the America/Mexico City time zone, the task runtime may be off by one hour due to the city's discontinuation of daylight savings time.
    • Workaround: Upgrade your Snaplex to JDK 11.0.18+.
  • Run Counters: Scheduled Tasks that are migrated to a different project do not reset their run counters.
  • Frequency Updates: Scheduled Tasks continue executing at the previous frequency, even when the frequency is updated from 1 minute to 1 week.
  • Snaplex Scheduler: Disabling and then enabling a Scheduled Task should prevent execution while disabled, but it does not.
  • Daylight Savings: When creating iterative Scheduled Tasks in regions with Daylight Savings, we recommend you use the Cron Job option. Refer to the best practices for details.
  • Triggered Task URLs: If you change a Triggered Task to a Scheduled Task, the Triggered Task URLs remain active, allowing the pipeline to be executed through them.
    • Workaround: Create a new Scheduled Task referencing the target pipeline and disable or delete the Triggered Task.