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A date and time format that determines when to run a scheduled job.

Structure

The cron pattern consists of six fields separated by spaces. The format is [second] [minute] [hour] [day of month] [month] [day of week].

You can choose a pattern using the Select Pattern screen. For more information, see Selecting a Pattern. Or, you can manually enter the pattern in the Pattern field.

The allowed values for the cron pattern fields are described in the following table:

Field

Allowed Values

Second

0-59

Minute

0-59

Hour

0-23

Day of month

1-31

Month

0-11 (0 = January)

Day of week

1-7 (1 = Sunday)

To configure each field, you use one of the following options:

  • An asterisk to run every instance of the value of the field

    It is equivalent to the range [first-last]. For example, an asterisk in the Month field runs the job every month.

  • A range

    The specified range is inclusive. For example, to specify a runtime between the hours of 8:00 and 11:00, the range of the Hour field would be [8-11], which is equivalent to [8,9,10,11].

  • A set of numbers or ranges separated by commas

    For example, if you enter [1,8-12,15] in the Day of month field, the job runs on the first, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and fifteenth days of the month.

  • A step, used with ranges

    Enter / after a range to specify which values to use in the range. For example, [0-23/2] can be used in the Hourfield to specify that a job runs every other hour. This is equivalent to specifying [0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22] in the Hourfield. Steps are permitted after an asterisk, so if you want to run the job every two hours, you use [*/2].

Example

Examples of cron patterns are described in the following table:

Pattern

Description

* * * * * *

Runs the job every second. None of the fields are restricted.

*/5 * * * * *

Runs every five seconds, starting at second zero (that is, seconds 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55)

0 * * * * *

Runs every minute, on the first second of the minute

0 0 * * * *

Runs every hour, on the first second of the minute and the first minute of the hour

0 0 */4 * * *

Runs every four hours, starting with hour zero (that is, hours 0,4,8,12,16,20) on the first second of the minute and the first minute of the hour

00 30 11 * * *

Runs every day at 11:30:00 AM

00 30 11 * * 2-6

Runs every weekday (Monday through Friday) at 11:30:00 AM. It does not run on Saturday or Sunday.

00 30 11 1 0,6 *

Runs at 11:30:00 AM on the first of January and first of July

00 30 11 1 0 2

Runs at 11:30:00 AM on the first of January if it is Monday. It is uncommon to specify both a [Day of Month] and a [Day of Week], but it is allowed. This job runs every few years since the first of January is not always a Monday.