Time-Based Triggers

This topic explains how to configure and manage the Time: Schedule trigger in Release.

The Time: Schedule trigger lets you trigger releases based on a time schedule that you define. You can trigger releases based on a:

• Fixed-rate interval
• Cron expression

Add a time trigger to a template

To create a Time: Schedule trigger:

1. Add a trigger to the template, as described in Create a release trigger.
2. Select the type of the schedule from the Schedule type list:
   • REPEAT: A repeatable interval in seconds
   • CRON: A cron expression
3. In the Schedule box, type the interval length in seconds or the cron expression.
4. Save the trigger.

Output properties

The output of the trigger is Trigger Time, which is the timestamp of the last trigger activation in ISO-8601 format.

Triggering on a cron expression

The cron pattern is a list of six fields representing second, minute, hour, day, month, and weekday. Each of these fields is separated by a single space. You can specify the month and weekday names as the first three letters of their English names.

Field	Allowed values	Special characters
Second	0-59	, - * /
Minute	0-59	, - * /
Hours	0-23	, - * /
Day	1-31	, - * ?
Month	1-12 or JAN-DEC	, - * /
Day of the week	1-7 or SUN-SAT	, - * ?

Time zone for cron jobs

The default time zone is the time zone provided by the host. To set a different time zone:

1. Open the XL_RELEASE_SERVER_HOME/conf/xl-release.conf file.
2. Set the xl.quartz.timezone property to the desired time zone, in the file. For example, to use Central European Time, set:

   quartz {
      timezone = CET
   }
3. Save the file and restart the Release server.

Special characters

Character	Meaning
*	Select all values within a field. For example, * in the minute field means "every minute".
?	Allowed for the day and day of week fields. It is used to specify "no specific value". This is useful when you need to specify something in one of the two fields, but not the other.
-	Used to specify ranges. For example, 9-12 in the hour field means "the hours 9, 10, 11 and 12".
,	Used to specify additional values. For example, MON,WED,FRI in the Day of week field means "the days Monday, Wednesday, and Friday".
/	Used to specify increments. For example, 0/15 in the seconds field means "the seconds 0, 15, 30, and 45", and 10/15 in the seconds field means "the seconds 10, 25, 40, and 55".
'#'	Used to specify “the nth” weekday of the month. For example, MON#1 means "the first Monday of the month"

Sample patterns

• 0 0 * * * * = the top of every hour of every day.
• */10 * * * * * = every ten seconds.
• 0 0 8-10 * * * = 8, 9 and 10 o'clock of every day.
• 0 0/30 8-10 * * * = 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, and 10:00 every day.
• 0 0 9-17 * * MON-FRI = on the hour nine-to-five weekdays
• 0 0 0 25 12 ? = every Christmas Day at midnight
• 0 0 0 ? * MON#1 = every first Monday of the month

Manage triggers

The Triggers management page displays an actionable list of all triggers that you have permissions to view and manage, and provides an entry point for creating new triggers. For details, see Triggers.