Advanced options for scheduled jobs
Summarize
Summary of Advanced options for scheduled jobs
Advanced options for scheduled jobs in ServiceNow Zurich release enable enhanced flexibility in scheduling job executions. These options allow you to define precise start and end dates, specify repeating intervals, and select complex recurrence patterns for scheduled jobs. This capability helps you plan jobs more effectively according to business needs.
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Key Features
- Run Types with Advanced Options: When selecting run types such as Daily, Monthly, Weekly, or yearly patterns (e.g., Day and Month in Year, Day in Week in Month in Year), an Advanced option becomes available on the scheduled job form.
- Advanced Scheduling Fields:
- Starting: Defines the beginning of the future window in which the job can start running, with a specific time determining the exact start.
- Ending: Defines the end of the future window when the job should stop running, with a specific time determining the stop time.
- Repeat every: Allows configuring custom recurrence intervals (e.g., every 2 days or every 3 weeks) to tailor how frequently the job repeats within the defined window. Note that this field is not supported for some yearly run types.
- Time Zone Handling: The Starting and Ending fields behave differently based on whether a time zone is selected:
- If a time zone is selected, entered times are stored in fields that respect the selected time zone and are converted into local UI times.
- If no time zone is selected, times are stored directly, and the job runs according to the time zone of the user who runs the job.
Practical Use and Behavior
For example, a daily job configured with a Starting date of June 1 at 00:00, Ending date of June 30 at 23:59, run time at 9:00 a.m., and Repeat every set to 1 day will run starting at 9:00 a.m. on June 1, then daily at 9:00 a.m. until June 30. If Repeat every is changed to 2 days, the job runs every other day within the window.
When creating scheduled jobs, if the Starting field is left empty, the system defaults to the current time.
What This Enables You to Do
- Schedule jobs with precise start and end windows to control when jobs are active.
- Define complex recurrence patterns beyond simple daily or weekly schedules.
- Handle scheduling across different time zones accurately by selecting and applying time zones to job start and end times.
- Manage job execution frequency flexibly to align with maintenance windows or business cycles.
Next Steps
- Use these advanced scheduling options when creating or editing scheduled jobs to fit your organizational timing requirements.
- Be mindful of time zone selections to ensure jobs run at expected local times.
- Refer to related scheduled job concepts and tasks such as enabling run types for job child tables to expand scheduling capabilities.
Advanced scheduling options for scheduled jobs support greater flexibility in job planning and execution. You can configure jobs to start on a future date, end on a particular date, and define how the job should repeat.
- Daily: Runs daily, at a designated time.
- Day and Month in Year: Runs yearly on a specific day and month (for example, July 14), at a designated time.
- Day in Week in Month in Year: Runs yearly on a specific day of the week in a specific week of a specific month (for example, the second Monday in October), at a designated time.
- Monthly: Runs on a monthly basis, at a designated time and day of the month.
- Periodically: Runs on a designated repeating interval.
- Week in Month: Runs monthly during a specific week of the month (for example, the third week of each month), on designated days and at a designated time.
- Weekly: Runs on a weekly basis, at a designated time and day of the week.
- Starting: Specifies the beginning of a window in the future within which the job starts running. The Time field determines the actual start time in the window.
- Ending: Specifies the ending of a window in the future within which the job stops running. The Time field determines the actual stop time in the window.
- Repeat every: Enables custom recurrence patterns. For example, a daily job that repeats every two days or a weekly job that repeats every three weeks. Note:The Repeat every field isn't supported with the Day and Month in Year and Day in Week in Month in Year run types.
Starting and Ending fields
| Column name | Column label | When used | Behavior |
|---|---|---|---|
| run_start | Starting | No time zone selected | Stores the value you enter directly. The job starts at the entered time in the time zone of the user who runs the job. By default, the user who creates the job is the user who runs the job. |
| entered_run_start | Starting | Time zone selected | Uses the value you enter and the selected time zone to automatically calculate the value of the other Starting [run_start] field by converting your entered time to the equivalent local time as displayed in the UI. |
| run_end | Ending | No time zone selected | Stores the value you enter directly. The job stops at the entered time in the time zone of the user who runs the job. By default, the user who creates the job is the user who runs the job. |
| entered_run_end | Ending | Time zone selected | Uses the value you enter and the selected time zone to automatically calculate the value of the other Ending [run_end] field by converting your entered time to the equivalent local time as displayed in the UI. |
- Time zone selected: In the Time zone field, select a time zone, and then enter your desired starting and ending times in the Starting [entered_run_start] and Ending [entered_run_end] fields. The system automatically calculates the values of the other Starting [run_start] and Ending [run_end] fields.
- No time zone selected: In the Time zone field, select -- None --, and then enter your desired starting and ending times in the Starting [run_start] and Ending [run_end] fields. The job runs in the time zone of the user who runs the job.
Daily scheduled job with no time zone
- Starting: June 1 at 00:00
- Ending: June 30 at 23:59
- Time: 9:00 a.m.
- Repeat every: 1 day
Although the job is scheduled to start on June 1 at 00:00, it doesn't run at that time. Instead, the job first runs at 9:00 a.m. on June 1 because that is the specified run time. The starting and ending times define the window of time during which the job is set to run. The first valid scheduled run within that window is when the job will run, in this case at 9:00 a.m. on June 1. When creating scheduled job records, if the value of the Starting field is empty, the system uses the current time.
If you change the value of the Repeat every field to 2, the job runs every 2 days at 9:00 a.m. starting on June 1. That means it runs on June 1, June 3, June 5, and so on, continuing every other day until June 29—the last occurrence before the ending time of June 30 at 23:59.