Scheduled Tasks and Cron Jobs
Plenty of useful work needs to happen on a timetable rather than in response to a click: nightly backups, weekly reports, monthly invoices, hourly data syncs. Scheduled tasks make this automatic.
On servers these are traditionally called cron jobs. Setting them up reliably removes manual, error-prone chores and ensures routine work simply gets done.
Typical Scheduled Work
- Database backups overnight.
- Sending reminder or renewal emails.
- Generating reports for the morning.
- Cleaning up temporary files and expired data.
Making Them Trustworthy
A scheduled task that silently fails is worse than none at all, because you assume it ran. We monitor each job and alert if it does not complete, so a missed backup never goes unnoticed.
- Run the job on its schedule.
- Record success or failure.
- Alert the team if it does not check in.
Choosing the Right Frequency
How often a task should run is a business decision as much as a technical one. Running too frequently wastes resources and can collide with the previous run; running too rarely means stale data or late notifications. We agree a sensible cadence with you for each job and adjust it as your needs change, so the timetable always matches how your business actually operates.
If you need a hand with any of this, your Progressive Robot delivery team is ready to help. Raise a ticket from the Support area of your client portal or speak to your account manager and we will guide you through the next steps.