Users have asked for the ability to run workflows periodically for a while now. We just deployed this ability for users on a paid plan (as this requires using the API section of the Editor). Here is how it works.
- You can now create Recurring Events in the API page (after you’ve activated the Workflow API for your app). Unlike API Events, these workflows cannot be triggered through a POST request, but can be used in a “Set/cancel a recurring event” (see below).
Such a workflow has to take a database thing as a parameter. To schedule a recurring event, you need to attach this to a thing.
- Once you’ve defined this event, you can use a Set/cancel a recurring event action in your workflow. This action takes an event, a thing, a frequency and a start date. Note that the same action is used to cancel a recurring workflow, just pick ‘none’ for the frequency.
If you want to update the frequency of a recurring even, you can apply the same action to a thing, and the scheduling will get updated for the following occurrences.
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You can see the upcoming recurring workflows in the scheduling view in the editor.
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Recurring events require some infrastructure on the server, so we have to make the daily frequency available to users on a Team plan, and the weekly frequency on users on a Professional Plan. Other frequencies are for all users on a paid plan (this can be changed for users on a Dedicated Plan).
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Note that only one recurring event can be applied per thing (for instance, one weekly newsletter per user). These limitations are necessary as this stage as recurring things can be pretty dangerous server side…
