Scheduling

Previously, you learned about the power of Webhooks and HTTP requests. In this section, we'll show you a simple yet effective way to implement Scheduling features into your flows.

Imagine we want to get a daily notification based on the current weather. In the flow below, we look at cloudiness and, based on the current weather, send either a "Cloudy" or "Sunny" email.

Using the "Timer" component in a flow

Notice how we've used the "Timer" component (named "Every day" and located at the beginning of the flow) to run the flow every 24 hours (1440 minutes).

Note that you could as well use the Scheduler component which provides a more flexible configuration when it comes to scheduling. The Scheduler component uses the cron syntax. Learn more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron

You may have noticed, we used the "Timers" module that consist of three components: Scheduler, Timer and Wait.

Scheduler, Timer and Wait components

Here is a simple explanation of each of the "Timers" components.

Timers component

Scheduler This trigger schedules jobs to run periodically at fixed times, dates, or intervals using the cron syntax.

Timer This trigger fires at the frequency provided by the interval configuration property. First message is sent to output when flow is started, this message does not have lastTick' and 'elapsed' property set.

Wait This component receives a message and waits for provided time (interval) to send original message to output port.

Keep in mind that you can customise all components and also implement your own using NodeJS and upload them to the Appmixer engine via the API to suit your specific business needs.

Having learned the basics about the Scheduling feature, let's look at another great tool, Forms.