Schedules

A schedule runs something by the clock: a nightly clean-up, a weekly digest, a sync every five minutes, a reminder sweep every hour. It starts a flow or emits an event that your subscriptions react to.

Two ways to schedule

Way	Use it for
A schedule definition (this page)	A job you manage in Schedules, aimed at a flow or an event, with options like time zone, overlap and catch-up
A schedule trigger inside a flow	A flow that owns its own timing. Add the Schedule trigger block to the flow and set its cron or interval there.

Both appear in Activity as runs with the source schedule.

Create a schedule

Open Schedules → New schedule.

Field	Meaning
Name	Letters, digits, dashes and underscores, for example `nightly-rollup`
Description	For your team
Cron expression	Five fields: minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week (0 is Sunday). Use this or an interval.
Interval	Run every N seconds instead. At least 10.
Time zone	For a cron: an IANA name such as `Europe/London` or `Africa/Lagos`. The cron is read in this zone. Empty means UTC. An interval schedule can’t have one.
Run	A flow to start, or an event to emit
Payload	Data to hand to the target
If the previous run is still going	Allow another run, or Skip this one
Catch up	Run a slot that was missed while nothing was scheduling. Off by default.
Enabled	Pause without deleting

Changes take effect within about 15 seconds.

Cron expressions

Five space-separated fields:

┌ minute (0–59)
│ ┌ hour (0–23)
│ │ ┌ day of month (1–31)
│ │ │ ┌ month (1–12)
│ │ │ │ ┌ day of week (0–6, Sunday is 0)
* * * * *

Expression	Runs
`/5 * * *`	Every 5 minutes
`0 * * * *`	Every hour, on the hour
`30 2 * * *`	Every day at 02:30
`0 9 * * 1-5`	Weekdays at 09:00
`0 8 * * 1`	Mondays at 08:00
`0 0 1 * *`	The first of every month at midnight
`0 0 1 1 *`	Once a year, on 1 January

* means every value, */n every n-th, a-b a range, and a,b a list. Because the cron is read in the schedule’s time zone, 0 9 * * * with Europe/London is 09:00 London time all year, including across daylight saving changes.

What the target receives

Target	What it gets
A flow with no payload	`{ "scheduled_at": "<time it fired>" }` as its input
A flow with a payload	Exactly your payload. Add a `scheduled_at` key of your own if you need the time.
An event	The payload (or none), emitted under the event’s name, so every subscription and webhook for it runs

Read the time from scheduled_at rather than the current clock so a delayed run still works on the right window.

Overlap

If a run takes longer than the gap between firings, two copies could run at once.

Allow starts a new run regardless. Fine for independent, quick work.
Skip drops a firing while the previous run is still queued or running. Use it for sweeps, syncs and anything that must not run twice at once. A skipped firing is recorded as skipped in the history.

Catch up

If the schedule’s server was down at a firing time, that run is normally lost. With Catch up on, one missed run is made up once the scheduler is back. It catches up once per schedule, not once per missed slot, so a day of downtime does not cause 288 runs of a five-minute job.

Test it: Run now

Use Run now on a schedule to fire it immediately, exactly as the clock would. Then open Activity → Flow runs to see the run and what it received. A manual run ignores the overlap setting.

Manage it from code

import { manage } from "@pawabase/client/manage";

const m = manage(pawabase);
await m.schedules.create({
  name: "nightly-rollup",
  cron: "0 2 * * *",
  timezone: "Europe/London",
  target_type: "flow",
  target: "rollup",
  payload: { window: "yesterday" },
  overlap: "skip",
});
await m.schedules.run("nightly-rollup");     // fire it now

pb.manage.schedules.create({
    "name": "nightly-rollup",
    "cron": "0 2 * * *",
    "timezone": "Europe/London",
    "target_type": "flow",
    "target": "rollup",
    "payload": {"window": "yesterday"},
    "overlap": "skip",
})
pb.manage.schedules.run("nightly-rollup")

Give exactly one of cron or interval_seconds. An invalid cron expression or time zone is refused with a message saying why.

Limits

Each plan includes a number of scheduled tasks (3 on Free up to 1,000 on Scale). See Plans and limits. Schedules run in the background like any flow, so they also count towards your monthly flow runs.

Patterns

Prefer sweeps to delayed jobs

Instead of one delayed job per invoice, run a short schedule that finds whatever is due (due_at passed and reminded false), handles it, and marks it. A missed run only delays things until the next one, and nothing is lost if the process restarts.

Nightly clean-up

0 3 * * * with Skip: delete expired records in a flow with the Delete records block, in batches.

Weekly digest

0 8 * * 1 in the user’s region’s time zone: a flow that gathers last week’s activity and uses Send email with a template.

Poll a partner

interval_seconds: 300 with Skip: a flow that calls the partner’s API and stores what’s new. Make it idempotent (use their ids as unique keys) so repeats are harmless.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
It never fires	Is it Enabled? Is the cron valid (five fields)? Is the time zone what you expect? Allow about 15 seconds after saving.
It fires at the wrong hour	The cron is read in the schedule’s time zone, UTC when empty.
Runs are marked skipped	Skip is on and the previous run is still going. Make the run faster, or switch to Allow.
It ran but did nothing	Open the run in Flow runs and read each block.
The input is missing `scheduled_at`	You gave a payload. A payload replaces the default input.
Too many runs after downtime	Turn Catch up off, or make the flow idempotent.

Background jobs

What a scheduled run becomes.

Flows

What a schedule runs.

Getting started

Events

Webhooks

Operate

Two ways to schedule

Create a schedule

Cron expressions

What the target receives

Overlap

Catch up

Test it: Run now

Manage it from code

Limits

Patterns

Prefer sweeps to delayed jobs

Nightly clean-up

Weekly digest

Poll a partner

Troubleshooting

Background jobs

Flows

​Two ways to schedule

​Create a schedule

​Cron expressions

​What the target receives

​Overlap

​Catch up

​Test it: Run now

​Manage it from code

​Limits

​Patterns

​Prefer sweeps to delayed jobs

​Nightly clean-up

​Weekly digest

​Poll a partner

​Troubleshooting

Background jobs

Flows

Two ways to schedule

Create a schedule

Cron expressions

What the target receives

Overlap

Catch up

Test it: Run now

Manage it from code

Limits

Patterns

Prefer sweeps to delayed jobs

Nightly clean-up

Weekly digest

Poll a partner

Troubleshooting