Schedule tasks

A saved task can run on its own at the times you choose: a nightly export of acme_store.orders, an hourly import, a weekly report script. Scheduled runs use the task’s saved configuration and the connections’ saved passwords.

Scheduled tasks run while Oxys DB Studio is open on this computer. Run times that pass while the application is closed are not caught up: they are recorded as missed. To run tasks on a server that is always on, send them to a remote task runner (see Team). In the browser version, Schedule always hands the task to the remote task runner, which runs it with its own files (see Use Oxys DB Studio in a browser); opened again there, the Task schedule editor shows the schedule the runner holds.

Schedule a task

1. Save the task first (Save and run tasks).
2. In the Tasks tab, select it and click Schedule (Ctrl+S). The Export, Import, Data Masking, Reschema and IntelliShell Script tabs also have a Schedule button for the task they are linked to.
3. In the Task schedule editor, choose the Recurrence and fill in the Schedule options.
4. Check the Schedule Summary: a sentence describing the schedule, followed by the next run times. It updates as you type.
5. Click Save.

If the task replaces, removes or drops data, the Schedule Task question lists what each run will destroy (for example Insertion mode “Drop collection first if it already exists” on acme_store.orders: existing data will be replaced or removed.) and reminds you that scheduled runs start without asking again. Confirm with OK only if that is what you want.

The Schedule column of the Tasks tab then shows the next run time.

Recurrences

• Times are your computer’s local time; the editor shows the UTC offset.
• End dates are included: a schedule ending on the 30th still runs on the 30th.
• A month without the chosen day (the 31st in April) has no run that month on that day; use Last for “the last day of every month”.
• In Custom, a day runs when it matches a chosen weekday or a chosen month day.

Remove a schedule

Select one or more tasks and click Unschedule (Ctrl+U). The tasks stay; only their schedules are removed.

What happens at run time

• When a run time comes, the task starts in the background, named after the task, without the Run Task question: saving the schedule was your go-ahead.
• Its connections are opened with their saved passwords. If a password is not saved, the run waits (it does not fail): connect once, typing the password, and the run starts.
• If the previous run of the same task is still going on, this one is skipped.
• If the computer was asleep, the run that was due runs once on wake-up and the later ones are recorded as missed.
• The read-only setting of a connection and each tool’s own checks apply, exactly as for a manual run.
• IntelliShell scripts run isolated; see Run IntelliShell scripts as tasks.

Editing a scheduled task

When you save a change to a scheduled task, the Schedule Task question comes back only if the change makes its runs destroy more than before (a new overwrite mode, a script that now drops a collection). Other changes are saved silently.

Run history

Right-click a task and choose Run History… to see its last 20 runs, newest first, manual and scheduled alike. Click Refresh to update running ones.

Run only new documents (incremental exports)

An export unit of a saved task can export only the documents added since its previous run.

1. Open the export task (Edit), select the unit, and open its Incremental execution options.
2. Choose Enable incremental execution for this unit and the field to follow (by default _id, which grows with insertion time for default ObjectIds).
3. Under Resume point options, keep the current resume point, choose Start from a fresh state, or Select a resume point among the last five.
4. Save the task.

Each run exports the documents whose field is above the last resume point, sorted on that field, and moves the point forward only when the run succeeds. Documents inserted during a run wait for the next one. Updated documents are not exported again: only new ones.

Tips

• Schedule a harmless task first (an export) and look at its run history after the first run before scheduling one that writes.
• Save the passwords of the connections a scheduled task uses, or it will wait for you.
• Leave the application running (it uses no CPU while nothing is due) or use a remote runner.

Troubleshooting