Scheduled Tasks

The ability to automate your everyday business tasks is one of the most essential features of database applications. With automated tasks, you can trigger automated workflows to run upon custom-defined conditions at scheduled times or on-demand, automating your daily business processes and eliminating tedious, repetitive labor and manual error.

What are tasks?

Tasks refer to a custom-defined set of actions with conditions that you can trigger to run automatically on a custom schedule or on-demand.

Examples of tasks that you can automate include:

• Sending an automated email on the first of each month to all your active customers with their total balance due
• Sending automatic alerts to employees with outstanding tasks reminding them of their upcoming deadlines
• Sending an automated email to the respective manufacturer when a product reaches a custom-defined minimum inventory
• Generating PDF reports weekly for management
• Updating record statuses based on date conditions
• Creating connected records at specified intervals

How tasks are processed

Each task is associated with a specific data table. When creating a new task, it is important to first correctly determine within which data table you will create the task. In general, you want to create the task within the data table that you want the task to loop through.

Example: Say you have a rental management business and you want to create a new task to automatically generate a new invoice on the 23rd of each month for each of your active leases.

Question: When creating this task, would you create the task within the Invoices data table or within the Leases data table?

Answer: You would create the task within the Leases data table. This is because you want to create the task within the data table that you want the task to loop through, and even though the task is to create a new invoice, the task will look through all the records within the Leases data table to find those that match the conditions of your task and run your desired action (task) upon those records.

Another easy way to determine within which data table you should create the task is by noting the data table that follows the term "for each". For instance, your task will create a new invoice for each active lease.

Creating a Task

To create a new task, select the Automation tab, click Scheduled Tasks, and then click on the Create a New Scheduled Task button.

Creating a task consists of several main components:

1. General settings (name, table, schedule)
2. Choose the action(s)
3. Choose the conditions
4. Set the field values
5. Post-action options (optional)

Let's walk through each of these components below.

1. General Settings

First, define the basic settings for your task:

Task Name and Data Table

• Task Name: Give your task a descriptive name that explains what it does
• Data Table: Select which data table the task will operate on
• Task Description (optional): Add notes about what this task does for documentation purposes

Trigger Mode

Choose how the task should be triggered:

• On Schedule: Task runs automatically at specified intervals
• On Demand: Task only runs when manually triggered or called via API

Schedule Configuration

If you selected "On Schedule", configure when and how often your task should run:

Basic Scheduling Options:

• Every Minute: Runs every minute (Enterprise plans only)
• Hourly: Runs once per hour (Enterprise plans only)
• Daily: Runs once per day at a specified time
• Weekly: Runs once per week on a specified day and time
• Monthly: Runs once per month on a specified date and time
• Quarterly: Runs every three months

For each frequency, you'll also set:

• Start Date: When the task should begin running
• Time: What time of day the task should run (based on your app's timezone)

Important: The date and time this task will run is based on the timezone you have configured in your app settings. If your app has the default timezone of UTC and you set a task to run at 12:00 AM daily, it will run at 12:00 AM UTC. Changing your timezone will not impact when existing tasks run until you re-save each task.

Advanced Scheduling (RRule)

For more complex scheduling patterns, you can use the Advanced Schedule option (available on select plans). This allows you to:

• Run tasks on specific days of the week (e.g., every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
• Set custom intervals (e.g., every 2 weeks, every 5 days)
• Define complex recurring patterns using RFC 5545 recurrence rules
• View a human-readable description of your schedule

Example: "Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 9:00 AM"

Tip: Advanced scheduling uses the RFC 5545 standard (RRule format) which provides powerful flexibility for complex scheduling needs. The interface will show you a plain-English description of your schedule as you configure it.

2. Choose an Action

Tasks can perform multiple types of actions. You can even configure multiple actions within a single task (multi-action tasks).

Available action types:

1. Update this record
2. Update connected records
3. Insert connected records
4. Insert new records
5. Send email
6. Send Text/SMS
7. Generate PDF

Please Note: Not all actions are available in all scenarios. Certain actions such as Update connected records or Insert connected records are only available if there are specific connection fields in your data table.

Let's explore each action type:

1. Update this record

Update this record will cycle through all records in the data table and update specific fields to values that you have predefined.

Task Example: Every day at 8:00 AM, find each record with a balance higher than 0 and set status to "Past Due"

2. Update connected records

Update connected records will look through all records in the data table and for each record that matches your task conditions, will update all the connected records of a related table to predefined values.

Task Example: Every day at 5:00 AM, look through all bills that are overdue and set each connected customer's status to "Inactive"

3. Insert connected records

Insert connected records will create a new record in a connected table for each record in this data table that matches your conditions.

Task Example: On the 23rd of each month, create a new invoice record for each lease with a status of "Active"

4. Insert new records

Insert new records will create one or more new records that are not necessarily connected to records in this data table.

Task Example: Every Monday at midnight, insert a new record in the logs data table with a summary of all current leases

5. Send Email

Send Email will send an email for each record in the database that matches your custom-defined task conditions.

Task Example: Send a daily email at 7:00 AM to each customer who has an appointment scheduled for that day

6. Send Text/SMS

Send Text/SMS will send a text message for each record in the database that matches your custom-defined task conditions.

Task Example: Send a daily text message to each customer that has a job scheduled and has opted into SMS notifications

7. Generate PDF

Generate PDF will create PDF documents based on your predefined PDF templates for records matching your conditions.

Task Example: On the last day of each month, generate an invoice PDF for each completed project

Note: PDF generation in scheduled tasks requires a plan that includes the "allow_pdf_scheduled_task" feature.

Multi-Action Tasks

You can add multiple actions to a single task. For example, you might want to update a record AND send an email in the same task execution.

Example: Create a task that:

1. Updates customer status to "Inactive" when payment is 30 days overdue
2. Sends an email notification to the customer
3. Sends an email notification to your billing team

Task action example

Now that we have identified each action type, let's look at a sample task action. As you can see in the image below, this sample task has the action of Inserting a connected record of a bill for each lease whenever the lease status is Active:

3. Choose Conditions

You can attach conditions to task actions to filter which records your task should process. For instance, "when the status is active":

You can add multiple conditions that work together using AND/OR logic. For instance:

• "Status is Active" AND "Created At is during the last 30 days"
• "Balance is greater than 0" OR "Status is Past Due"

To add additional conditions, click on the + icon next to existing conditions.

Tip: Use conditions to ensure your task only processes relevant records. This improves performance and prevents unintended changes to your data.

4. Set Field Values

For this step, you must specify the fields and field values to be used when the task runs.

For instance, if your task action is Send Email, you will need to set:

• To Email Address: Which field contains the recipient's email (or enter a specific email)
• Subject: The email subject line (can include merge fields)
• Message Body: The email content (can include merge fields from your data)

As another example, let's use the same example with inserting a connected invoice record:

Please Note: When setting values, the available options depend on the field type and the structure of your data table. You can use static values or dynamic values from the current record being processed.

5. Post-Action Options

After your task completes its main actions, you can configure additional post-action behaviors:

Email Notifications

Enable email notifications to receive an email when the task completes:

• Toggle on "Send email notification"
• Enter recipient email addresses (comma-separated for multiple recipients)
• The email will include task execution summary (success/failure, records processed)

Webhook Triggers

Configure webhook callbacks to notify external systems when your task runs:

• Webhook URL: The endpoint to POST task results to
• Success Callback URL (optional): A different URL for successful completions
• The webhook payload includes task status, records processed, and execution time

Tip: Use webhooks to integrate scheduled tasks with external systems, trigger additional workflows, or log task execution in third-party services.

Running Tasks

Tasks can be triggered via four different methods:

1. Scheduled automatic execution
2. On Demand (manual)
3. Via a component
4. Via API

1. Scheduled Automatic Execution

With scheduled tasks, your tasks run automatically at custom-defined intervals on a recurring basis based on the schedule you configured.

How it works:

1. The system checks every minute for tasks that are due to run
2. When a task's scheduled time arrives, it's added to the task queue
3. The task processes records according to your conditions and actions
4. Results are logged in the task history
5. The next run time is automatically calculated based on your schedule

Note: Tasks are processed in a queue system, which means they run asynchronously in the background without blocking other operations in your app.

2. On Demand (Manual Execution)

You can run tasks on demand at any time, which is useful for testing or one-time executions.

To run a task manually:

1. Open the task in the builder
2. Click the Run Task button at the top right of the task edit page
3. The task will execute immediately

Tasks must first be saved before they can be run. Making any changes to a task will disable the Run Task button until you save your changes.

3. Via Components

You can add a Task Component to your pages. This creates a button that end users can click to trigger the task.

This has several benefits:

• Allows users to run tasks without accessing the builder
• Can be added to detail pages to run tasks on specific records
• Enables task execution within workflows
• Can be permission-controlled based on user roles

4. Via API

Tasks can be triggered programmatically using the Tadabase REST API.

API Endpoint:

POST /api/v1/tasks/run/{taskId}

Use cases:

• Integrate task execution with external systems
• Trigger tasks from webhooks or third-party services
• Build custom automation workflows
• Execute tasks based on events outside of Tadabase

Note: API task execution requires a plan that includes the "allow_task_in_api" feature.

Monitoring and Managing Tasks

Task History and Logs

Within each task, you can view comprehensive execution history including:

• Start Time: When the task began executing
• End Time: When the task completed
• Status: Success or Failed
• Records Processed: How many records were affected
• Task Type: The action that was performed
• Trigger Source: Schedule, API, Manual, or Component
• Error Details: If the task failed, what went wrong

To view task history, click on the History tab inside the task editor.

Task Queue Status

View the current status of running tasks in the Task Queue tab:

• See which tasks are currently executing
• Monitor progress for long-running tasks
• View total records and records completed
• Terminate stuck or problematic tasks if needed

Organizing Tasks with Folders

As you create more tasks, you can organize them using folders:

• Create folders to group related tasks
• Drag and drop tasks into folders
• Filter views by folder
• Improve navigation and task management

Enabling and Disabling Tasks

You can temporarily disable a task without deleting it:

• Use the toggle switch at the top of the task editor
• Disabled tasks will not run on their schedule
• The task configuration is preserved and can be re-enabled anytime
• Useful for temporarily pausing tasks during maintenance or testing

Task Allowances and Plan Limits

Please note that not all Tadabase plans include the ability to automate tasks. Check your subscriptions page or the Tadabase pricing page to see if your plan includes tasks.

Execution Time Limits

Each plan has unique limitations on how long each task can run:

• Plus: 5 Minutes (approximately 100,000 minor record updates, or 5,000 complex updates)
• Pro: 10 Minutes
• Premium: 15 Minutes
• Bronze: 20 Minutes
• Enterprise: 1 Hour

Frequency Limits

The shortest interval available depends on your plan:

• Standard Plans (Plus, Pro, Premium, Bronze): Daily minimum
• Enterprise Plans: Additional options including:
  • Hourly
  • Every Minute
  • Custom intervals (as low as every 5 minutes with advanced scheduling)

Feature Restrictions by Plan

Certain task features are restricted to specific plans:

• Advanced Scheduling (RRule): Available on select higher-tier plans
• PDF Generation in Tasks: Requires plans with PDF task support
• API Task Execution: Requires plans with API task support
• Multi-Action Tasks: Number of actions per task may be limited by plan

Best Practices for Scheduled Tasks

Testing Your Tasks

1. Start with a small test: Use conditions to limit the task to a small subset of records first
2. Use On Demand testing: Run the task manually before scheduling it
3. Check the history: Review execution logs to ensure the task behaves as expected
4. Monitor the first scheduled runs: Watch the task closely during its first few automatic executions

Performance Tips

• Use specific conditions: Don't process more records than necessary
• Schedule during off-peak hours: Run resource-intensive tasks when user activity is low
• Break up large tasks: If a task times out, consider splitting it into multiple smaller tasks
• Use indexes: Ensure fields used in conditions have appropriate database indexes

Reliability Tips

• Set up email notifications: Get alerted if tasks fail
• Review task history regularly: Check for failures or anomalies
• Document your tasks: Use the description field to explain what each task does
• Organize with folders: Keep related tasks grouped for easier management

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Task Not Running

If your task isn't running as expected:

• Verify the task is Enabled (toggle switch is on)
• Check that the start date hasn't been set in the future
• Confirm your plan includes the frequency you selected
• Review the task conditions - no records may match your filters
• Check if you've reached your plan's task limit

Task Timing Out

If your task is timing out before completion:

• Reduce the number of records being processed (add more specific conditions)
• Simplify the actions being performed
• Consider upgrading to a plan with longer execution time limits
• Break the task into multiple smaller tasks that run sequentially

Task Failing

If your task shows as "Failed" in history:

• Check the error message in the task history log
• Verify all required fields have values
• Ensure email addresses are valid (for email tasks)
• Confirm connection fields are properly configured (for connected record tasks)
• Test the task manually to reproduce and debug the error

Related Articles

• Record Rules and Automations
• Task Logs and Monitoring
• Using Tasks via the REST API