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Scheduling and automation

What scheduling controls​

Scheduling decides when a checklist or task should run next. It is made up of three things:

  1. Start date. The earliest day the schedule is allowed to produce a run.
  2. Frequency. How often the run repeats: weekly on certain days, monthly on a given day, or yearly on a given date.
  3. Day-of-month or day-of-year. For monthly and yearly cadences, the exact day inside the period.

OpusHub interprets dates in your organisation timezone, not the server's timezone. So "May 1 in Sydney" stays May 1, even if the server is in a different region.

Checklist-level vs task-level schedules​

A checklist template has its own schedule that governs when a brand new run opens. Individual tasks inside that template can have their own schedule too, which controls whether the task shows up on a given run and when it next becomes due.

If a checklist runs daily but a task only repeats weekly on Mondays, the task only appears on Monday's run.

Examples​

  • Weekly on Monday and Wednesday. Choose Week, value 1, weekdays Monday, Wednesday. The schedule produces runs on those weekdays only.
  • Every 3 months on the 1st starting May 21. Choose Month, value 3, dayOfMonth 1. The first run lands on Jun 1, then Sep 1, Dec 1, Mar 1, ...
  • Every 3 months on the 1st starting Jun 1. Same setup, with the start landing exactly on the dayOfMonth. The first run is Jun 1, then Sep 1, Dec 1, ...
  • Every year on July 4 starting in April. Choose Year, value 1, dayOfYear Jul 4. First run is Jul 4 of that year, then yearly.

Automatic vs manual​

  • Automatic. A scheduled cron job opens new runs at the start of the configured day. You do not need to click anything.
  • Manual. Staff press Run when the work needs to start. The frequency settings still control which tasks show on each manual run.

Close types​

A template's Close type decides when an open run stops accepting work:

  • Automatic at set time. The run closes at a specific time of day.
  • Automatic before next run. The run closes when the next scheduled run opens. Useful for "once a day, no overlap" routines.
  • Manual. The run stays open until a user closes it. Many teams set this to Manager only to control who can close.

Runs that close automatically show OpusHub Automation as the actor in the activity feed and history, so it's clear the close wasn't done by a person.

What "next start date" shows​

On the template page and the Checklists list, every checklist shows the date of its next planned run. This value is recomputed whenever the page loads and whenever a task is edited. If you change scheduling, the next date updates straight away.

Common pitfalls​

  • Start date is in the past with no day-of-month set. OpusHub uses the 1st by default. Set a day-of-month on the template to be explicit.
  • Server timezone vs organisation timezone. Your organisation timezone lives in Settings. If it is wrong, monthly and yearly dates can land a day early or late. Update the org timezone if so.
  • Manual checklists. A manual checklist never auto-runs even if a next-run date is shown.

:::info Screenshot placeholder Add screenshot: template edit screen with the Automation section showing frequency, day-of-month, start date and close type. :::