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Scheduled Trigger

Starts a Workflow instance at a designated time, and can be scheduled to be reoccurring.

Use case

The Scheduled trigger starts an instance of a Workflow at a predefined date and time. Additionally, the trigger can be set to repeat at set intervals.

Common use cases can include weekly performance feedback requests for HR or analyzing data stored in a table for monthly reporting purposes.

How to configure this trigger

You can add new triggers or configure any existing triggers on a Workflow’s edit screen. Triggers are configured for each Workflow.

note
  • Note: Once a scheduled trigger is configured, it will run as scheduled whether or not the process it triggers is prepared. For example, if you configure a process to send a company wide email but haven’t finalized the email text, and a scheduled trigger is added and the scheduled date occurs, the process will run inadvertently.

Fields for this trigger

  • Trigger Name

    • Name to label the trigger within the Triggers page
  • Schedule

    • Select a date to run this trigger on. You can set this as recurring in the recurring field.
    • You can set a date and time for the scheduled trigger. To set a time, select 12:00PM at the bottom of the date picker.
  • Recurring

    • Define frequency this trigger should run based on the schedule date.
    • Defaults to Does not repeat, but a scheduled trigger can repeat every hour, day, weekday, week, month, or year
  • Timezone

    • Select the timezone this trigger will use for daylight savings (DST) adjustments. This field only changes when the 1 hour DST adjustment occurs, it does not change when the trigger itself will run.
      • With no timezone set, DST transitions do not occur.
      • With a timezone set, DST transitions occur in the specified time zone.
    • For example, if a user in Chicago, USA sets up a scheduled trigger to run daily at 2:00 PM and sets no timezone, it will occur at 2:00 PM until a daylight savings adjustment occurs, at which point it will appear to start at 3:00 PM until the next DST adjustment occurs. If this field is set to America/Chicago, then the trigger will always appear to run at 2:00 PM, even across DST adjustments. See How timezones work with scheduled triggers for more information.

    • note
      • Note: For users adding a timezone to existing recurring scheduled triggers, you may accidentally start a single instance before the next recurring time would occur if you do not adjust the Schedule time and date. Learn more.

How timezones work with scheduled triggers

In general, time and dates are set based on the owner or creator’s timezone. For example, if Koichi from Japan in Japan Standard Time (JST) creates a scheduled trigger for Dec 20th at 7:00 AM, it will trigger at that exact time in JST. JST is used because that’s the timezone the user was in when they created the scheduled trigger.

However, PagerDuty Workflow Automation displays time and dates relevant to the user, so if Koichi’s colleague Erika from Berlin opens and edits the scheduled trigger from their computer in Central European Standard Time (CET), it will appear as Dec 19th, 11:00 PM. This is because of the time difference, not because the scheduled trigger has changed—it is simply the time Koichi set in JST, but represented in CET for Erika.

Check How timing and delays are interpreted across time zones for more on time zones.

What will this output?

The expected output of this trigger is an instance of the Workflow at the date and time defined in Date/time used for the pattern.

Get help with a problem or question

If something’s not working as expected, or you’re looking for suggestions, check through the options below.

What happens to scheduled triggers during Daylight Savings Time?

Daylight Savings time will affect the start time of triggers. It is recommended to adjust triggers prior to daylight savings time taking affect if this may interfere with your process.

For example, if a process is set to begin at 5:30AM CST, the start time will change to 4:30AM CST when daylight savings takes place.

Adjusting the date on a scheduled trigger will occasionally trigger an instance

You may accidentally start a single instance from a scheduled trigger in two cases:

If an active scheduled trigger date is adjusted to an earlier date

For example if a scheduled trigger is set to repeat weekly and was originally set for 1/26/2020 (Sunday), but it is adjusted one day prior to 1/25/2020 (Saturday), an instance will start immediately.

This does not happen when adjusting a scheduled trigger ahead of the current date, for example the scheduled trigger is originally set for 1/26/2020 (Sunday), but it is adjusted one day later, 1/27/2020 (Monday), an instance will not start.

If a timezone is added to an existing trigger with a scheduled date in the past

For users adding a timezone to existing recurring scheduled triggers, you may accidentally start a single instance before the next recurring time would occur if you do not adjust the Schedule time and date. This is because the system may interpret your time as being in the past.

To prevent this, before adding the timezone, it is recommended to update your Schedule date and time to the next time the recurring trigger would occur, and then set the timezone. For example if you have a daily scheduled trigger run at 2 PM, and today is Feb 12th, 2021 at 3 PM, set the Schedule date time to the next occurrence at Feb 13th, 2021, at 2PM. You only need to do this once.

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