Scheduling with Quartz cron expressions

This page provides an in-depth look at the scheduling features for Data Loader batch pipelines. These scheduling features are driven by Quartz cron expressions, which follow a specific syntax.

You can create a schedule when setting the frequency for the pipeline either in Basic or Advanced mode.

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Basic mode

Basic mode lets you configure your schedule without the need to write a Quartz cron expression explicitly. In Basic mode, you need to:

• Choose a timezone, such as Europe/London.
• Choose the regularity of units for the scheduled pipeline.
  • When Unit is set to Days, you can set Repeat every to any number between 1 and 31.
  • When Unit is set to Week, you must choose the day of the week the pipeline will run.
• Choose between 0 and 23 for hour and 0 and 59 for minutes. Set both fields to 0 to run at midnight.

Your choices will be converted into a cron expression displayed in bold text. If you approve, click Create pipeline or edit the schedule.

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Advanced mode

Advanced mode lets you write Quartz cron expressions to schedule your pipelines. Using a cron expression lets you fine-tune a schedule to your specific needs. A Quartz cron expression consists of six space-separated fields:

<second> <minute> <hour> <day of the month> <month> <day of the week>

There is a minimum interval of five minutes between scheduled runs to ensure smooth system performance.

Note

The Quartz cron expression mechanism does not support expressions containing lists of seconds or minutes.

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Field descriptions

Property	Description	Example
Second	Specifies seconds within a minute (0-59). Special characters like *, -, and / can be used.	*/10 represents every 10 seconds.
Minute	Defines minutes within an hour (0-59). Special characters like *, -, and / can be used.	5/10 means every 10 minutes starting at the 5th minute.
Hour	Indicates hours within a day (0-23). Special characters like *, -, and / can be used.	8-10 includes 8:00am, 9:00am, and 10:00am. 6,18 denotes 6:00am and 6:00pm.
Day of the Month	Specifies days within a month (1-31). Special characters like *, -, ?, / and L can be used.	1-4 covers the first four days of the month. L stands for the last day of the month.
Month	Represents months of the year (1-12 or JAN-DEC). Special characters like *, -, and / can be used.	12 corresponds to December.
Day of the Week	Represents days of the week (1-7 or MON-SUN). Special characters like *, -, ?, / L and # can be used.	1-5 covers every weekday (Monday to Friday).

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Special characters

Quartz cron expressions use special characters to define schedules.

Property	Description
*	Represents all values within a field. For example, * in the minute field corresponds to every minute.
?	Specifies something in one field but not the other (commonly used for days of the week).
-	Specifies ranges. For example, 10-12 in the hour field means the hours 10, 11, and 12.
,	Defines additional values. For instance, MON,WED,FRI in the day-of-week field represents Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
/	Indicates increments. For example, 0/15 in the seconds field means the seconds 0, 15, 30, and 45.
L	It has different meanings based on its field. In the day-of-month field, it signifies the last day of the month. In the day-of-week field, it means "7" or "SUN" when used by itself.
#	Indicates "the nth" day of the week in a month. For instance, 5#3 in the day-of-week field means the third Friday of the month.

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Example expressions

Here is a sample of Quartz cron expressions:

Run every weekday (Monday to Friday) at 3:30pm:

0 30 15 ? * MON-FRI

Run on the first day of the month at 6:00am

0 0 6 1 * ?

Run every 15 minutes between 9:00am and 5:59pm on weekdays

0 0/15 9-17 ? * MON-FRI

Run at the start of every hour, every day

0 0 * ? * *

Warning

Quartz cron expressions support a value in either the 4th or the 6th position but not both. Additionally, both positions cannot be empty. If you create an invalid cron pattern, your system may become unresponsive.