Workflow scheduling plans really aren't like a cron schedule

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.

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.