Scheduled Tasks

Developer documentation for the scheduled task system.

Overview

The scheduled tasks system provides a general-purpose framework for running tasks on a schedule. Tasks are PHP classes paired with JSON config files. A single cron entry runs every 15 minutes and executes any tasks that are due.

Architecture

Cron (every 15 min)
  → utils/process_scheduled_tasks.php
    → Load active ScheduledTask records from DB
    → For each task where is_due():
      1. Resolve and instantiate the task class
      2. Call run($config) with the task's sct_task_config
      3. Update last_run_time and last_run_status

File Structure

Each task consists of two files sharing the same base name:

tasks/
  WeeklyEventsDigest.php       ← PHP class implementing ScheduledTaskInterface
  WeeklyEventsDigest.json      ← Metadata and default configuration

plugins/bookings/tasks/
  BookingReminder.php
  BookingReminder.json

Creating a New Task

1. Create the JSON Config File

Place in /tasks/ (core) or /plugins/{plugin}/tasks/ (plugin).

{
    "name": "My Task Name",
    "description": "What this task does",
    "default_frequency": "daily",
    "default_day_of_week": 1,
    "default_time": "09:00:00",
    "config_fields": {
        "some_setting": {"type": "text", "label": "Some Setting", "required": true}
    }
}

Fields:

• name — Display name in admin
• description — Explains what the task does
• default_frequency — Default frequency: every_run, hourly, daily, weekly (defaults to daily)
• default_day_of_week — Default schedule day (0=Sunday–6=Saturday, only used for weekly)
• default_time — Default time of day (HH:MM:SS, only used for daily and weekly)
• config_fields — Task-specific parameters rendered in admin form

• text — Text input
• number — Numeric input
• boolean — Checkbox
• mailing_list — Mailing list dropdown (populated from database)

2. Create the PHP Task Class

<?php
require_once(PathHelper::getIncludePath('includes/ScheduledTaskInterface.php'));

class MyTaskName implements ScheduledTaskInterface {
    public function run(array $config) {
        // $config contains values from sct_task_config (set via admin form)

        // Do work here...

        // Return an array with status and human-readable message
        // Status meanings:
        //   'success'  — Ran and completed (with or without work to do)
        //   'skipped'  — Could not run (misconfigured, missing prerequisite)
        //   'error'    — Attempted to run but failed
        return array('status' => 'success', 'message' => 'Processed 5 items');
    }
}

Sending email from a task. For digest/notification tasks, send through EmailSender — the one-call helper is EmailSender::sendTemplate($templateName, $to, $values), or build an EmailMessage::fromTemplate(...) and call $sender->send($message) for more control. See the Email System → Development Patterns for the full API; do not hand-roll mail() or PHPMailer calls. tasks/WeeklyEventsDigest.php is the worked example.

Self-deactivating tasks

A task can ask the runner to flip its sct_is_active to false after the current run by adding 'deactivate' => true to the result array:

return array(
    'status'     => 'success',
    'message'    => 'No more work to do.',
    'deactivate' => true,
);

This is the right pattern for one-shot drain tasks (e.g. CloudStorageReverseSync deactivates itself once every cloud-stored file has been pulled back). The runner reads the flag, sets sct_is_active = false on the task row, and saves — so the row is not re-evaluated on subsequent ticks until something explicitly reactivates it.

Setting sct_is_active = false from inside the task with a separate save() does not work: the runner holds an in-memory snapshot of the row from before the call to run(), and its post-run save would overwrite the deactivation. Use the deactivate flag.

3. (Optional) Add Dry Run Support

Tasks can implement the ScheduledTaskDryRunnable interface to support preview/dry run from the admin UI. This is especially useful for email tasks where you want to see what would be sent without actually sending.

class MyTaskName implements ScheduledTaskInterface, ScheduledTaskDryRunnable {
    public function run(array $config) {
        // ... normal execution with side effects
    }

    public function dryRun(array $config) {
        // Perform all read/computation logic but skip side effects
        // (no sending emails, no deleting records, no API calls)

        return array(
            'status' => 'success',
            'message' => 'Would process 5 items',
            'html' => $preview_html,  // Optional: rendered in admin UI
        );
    }
}

Return keys:

• status (string, required) — Same as run(): success, skipped, error
• message (string, required) — Summary of what would happen (e.g., "Would send 5 events to 42 recipients")
• html (string, optional) — HTML preview displayed inline on the admin page (e.g., the email body)

4. Activate via Admin

Navigate to Admin > System > Scheduled Tasks. The task appears under "Available Tasks". Click Activate to create the database row and enable scheduling.

Data Model

Table: sct_scheduled_tasks

MultiScheduledTask filter options: active (bool), deleted (bool), task_class (string)

Key Methods

ScheduledTask::is_due()

Behavior depends on sct_frequency:

• every_run — Always due (runs every cron invocation, ~15 min)
• hourly — Due if not already run in the current clock hour
• daily — Due if past sct_schedule_time today (site timezone) and not already run today
• weekly — Due if correct sct_schedule_day_of_week, past sct_schedule_time, and not already run today

ScheduledTask::resolve_task_file()

Searches for the PHP class file:

1. /tasks/{class_name}.php
2. /plugins/*/tasks/{class_name}.php

ScheduledTask::get_task_config()

Returns sct_task_config as an associative array.

Cron Runner

File: utils/process_scheduled_tasks.php

• Rejects non-CLI access
• Updates scheduled_tasks_last_cron_run setting (heartbeat)
• Loads active, non-deleted tasks
• Runs due tasks and updates their status
• Outputs timestamped results to stdout (logged by cron)

Orphaned tasks (code file removed)

Deploys ship and remove code; they never touch the sct_scheduled_tasks table. So when a task is removed or consolidated in a release, its activation row is intentionally left behind (orphan-by-design) — a deploy will not silently delete an operator's configured schedule and config based on a file no longer being present (which could also be a partial deploy, a rename, or an unsynced plugin).

When the runner hits such a row, resolve_task_file() returns null and it records a distinct orphaned status with a "remove this task in admin, or restore the file" message. An orphan *still counts toward the run's error tally, so the cron-health summary stays honest — it is a real "this needs attention" condition, just a remove-or-restore cleanup item rather than a task that ran and failed.

The admin Active Tasks list flags orphans with an Orphaned badge, detected live (by resolving the file on page load) so it reflects the current deploy rather than the last stored status. Cleanup is a manual, per-site operator action: Deactivate the task (soft-deletes the row). Consolidation therefore has two operator steps on each site — activate the new task, and remove the obsolete ones.

Per-task advisory locking

Each task's run() is wrapped in pg_try_advisory_lock(hashtext(sct_name)), so a long-running task cannot be re-entered by the next cron tick. If the lock cannot be acquired the task is skipped with skipped: already running and the runner moves on to the next task. The lock auto-releases when the PHP connection closes, so a crashed process self-recovers on the next tick.

This is transparent to task implementations — no run() code needs to know about the lock — but it means tasks that legitimately want to run in parallel across ticks would be serialized. In practice the cron tick interval (15 min) is long compared to almost every task's runtime, so the serialization is rarely visible.

Setup

Standard server — Add to the www-data user's crontab (sudo crontab -e -u www-data):

*/15 * * * * php /var/www/html/{sitename}/public_html/utils/process_scheduled_tasks.php >> /var/www/html/{sitename}/logs/cron_scheduled_tasks.log 2>&1

Docker container — Ensure cron is installed and running, then create /etc/cron.d/scheduled-tasks:

*/15 * * * * www-data php /var/www/html/{sitename}/public_html/utils/process_scheduled_tasks.php >> /var/www/html/{sitename}/logs/cron_scheduled_tasks.log 2>&1

Note: Docker containers may not have cron installed by default. Install with apt-get install -y cron and start the daemon with cron. The cron daemon must also be started after container restart (add to entrypoint if needed).

New installs get the crontab entry automatically via _site_init.sh. Existing sites see a warning on the admin page with setup instructions if cron hasn't run in 30+ minutes.

Admin Page

File: adm/admin_scheduled_tasks.php Logic: adm/logic/admin_scheduled_tasks_logic.php Menu: System > Scheduled Tasks (permission level 10)

Sections:

• Cron Status Warning — Shown when cron hasn't run in 30+ minutes
• Active Tasks — Table with schedule, status, edit/run now/dry run/deactivate controls
• Edit Form — Schedule day/time and task-specific config fields
• Dry Run Preview — Shown after a dry run; displays the task's HTML preview with a "no email was sent" banner
• Available Tasks — Discovered but not yet activated tasks with activate button

The Inbound Email plugin's PollImapAccounts task (every_run) illustrates a two-level cadence. The task frequency is a floor: it fires every cron pass but does no per-mailbox work unless an account is due. Each IMAP account carries its own iia_poll_interval_seconds (default 300), and the task only polls accounts whose interval has elapsed — so the per-account interval is the real cadence, and the task can run frequently without hammering every mailbox. Each account is claimed with an atomic conditional UPDATE (stamping iia_last_poll_time on pickup) so two overlapping runs can't race the same account's UID cursor. Failures are per-account and non-fatal — one unreachable mailbox is recorded in that account's status and never fails the run. See Receiving by IMAP poll.

Related Files

ReconcileStripeSubscriptions loads the global working set (MultiOrderItem(['is_active_subscription' => true])), then pages Stripe's subscription list endpoint* (`get_subscriptions(['status' => 'all', 'limit' => 100])`, up to 100 per call, stopping once every wanted id is found) and applies each via StripeHelper::apply_subscription_to_order_item() — one bulk fetch rather than a per-item round-trip. It writes a single EventLog summary row per run and implements ScheduledTaskDryRunnable for a no-write preview of pending changes.