Relative scheduling

Help > Relative scheduling

Relative scheduling allows you to schedule things in terms of when a schedule starts running and stops running (START and STOP).

1min_after_start schedule_items

This allows for schedules to be run at different times and with different durations.  When a schedule is run, its START value gets set to the current time.  Items in that schedule that are scheduled in terms of START use this value to determine when to run.  Similarly, items scheduled in terms of STOP use the schedule’s stop time to determine when to run.

Example 1

Say you have a schedule with one item:

Action: Task 1
Start time: 00:01:00 after START
Stop time : 00:01:00 before STOP

The schedule is set to run from 8:00 to 9:00.

Result: Task 1 runs from 8:01 to 8:59.

Example 2

Now say instead of a task, the schedule item is a schedule:

Action: Schedule 2
Start time: 00:01:00 after START
Stop time : 00:01:00 before STOP

and that schedule has one item:

Action: Task B
Start time: 00:10:00 after START
Stop time : 00:10:00 before STOP

Again we run the main schedule from 8:00 to 9:00.

Result:
Schedule 2 runs from 8:01 to 8:59
Task B runs from 8:11 to 8:49

To learn more

You can always use the “Calculate” function to try different scenarios without actually having to run them.