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Workflow scheduling plans really aren't like a cron schedule

  • February 7, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 239 views

Marcel-Jan
Star Blazer L2
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Yes, it is clearly stated in the documentation (Scheduler - Ataccama ONE Gen2 Platform Latest), but it is also easy to overlook: scheduling plans for workflows look a bit like crontab schedules. But they aren't.

Example workflow scheduling plan:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>

<scheduleDefinition>

        <description>ATAC_DWH - Load Dimensions and Facts</description>

        <enabled>true</enabled>

        <job workflow="myorg:ATAC_DWH_dims_and_facts.ewf" class="com.ataccama.adt.scheduler.job.WorkflowJob"/>

        <scheduling>0 20 1-5 *</scheduling>

</scheduleDefinition>

 

For example, when you want to schedule workflow Monday to Friday at 20:00 you might think “easy, I just go to crontab.guru, Fill in what I want and voila”: the schedule plan will be 0 20 * * 1-5.

Except you will notice that your workflow will also run in weekends. Because the format of the workflow scheduler is:

minutes hours day_of_week day_of_month

It has only four positions. And it will happily ignore your 1-5 (meaning Monday to Friday) on the fifth position.

So your actual scheduling plan should be: 0 20 1-5 *

 

Also, this scheduling format is different from the advanced scheduling format of monitoring projects.

The scheduler for monitoring projects actually is cron expression like.

This _is_ actually cron expression like and Ataccama even has a link to the cron expression generator  on freeformatter.com. You would be excused to think you could generate a scheduling plan for monitoring project and then copy it to your workflow scheduling plan, thinking that will work. But there formats are not the same.

 

You wouldn't be the first one to overlook this. Maybe it's time for an ataccamacrontab.guru or Ataccama scheduling plan generator or something.

2 replies

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Hi @Marcel-Jan, thank you for taking the time to share this tip and pass on the feedback on how we can make it more visible 💡


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  • Data Voyager
  • August 10, 2026

“Maybe it's time for an ataccamacrontab.guru or Ataccama scheduling plan generator or something.”

Bumping this up as I just discovered that freeformatter.com is now retired - the link pictured above in the advanced scheduling format of monitoring projects no longer works, and the website in general has the following announcement:
 

Another Corner of the Internet Has Been Successfully Ruined

This website is being retired.

 

So yes, even with many other (free) cron expression generators out there in the wild, maybe it would be good if Ataccama provided an “in-house” solution for cron expression generation (results from the ones I tried did not match the format of cron expressions that are currently in place in my monitoring projects).