Backup Schedule Types

Rate-based schedules

A rate-based schedule allows for the creation of common recurrent scheduling scenarios such as 15-minute intervals, every two hours, or every five days.

value

A positive number.

unit

The unit of time you want your schedule to invoke its target.

Valid inputs: minutes | hours | days

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Cron-based schedules

Cron expressions allow for precise scheduling at a specific time. BackupSheep scheduler supports using UTC or a specified time zone. For instance, you can set a schedule to run at 8:00 a.m. PST on the first Monday of each month using a cron expression.

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Wildcard

• The (comma) wildcard includes additional values. In the Month field, JAN, FEB, MAR includes January, February, and March.
• The - (dash) wildcard specifies ranges. In the Day field, 1-15 includes days 1 through 15 of the specified month.
• The (asterisk) wildcard includes all values in the field. In the Hours field, includes every hour. You can't use * in both the Day-of-month and Day-of-week fields. If you use it in one, you must use ? in the other.
• The / (slash) wildcard specifies increments. In the Minutes field, you could enter 1/10 to specify every tenth minute, starting from the first minute of the hour (for example, the 11th, 21st, and 31st minute, and so on).
• The ? (question mark) wildcard specifies any. In the Day-of-month field, you could enter 7 and if any day of the week was acceptable, you could enter? in the Day-of-week field.
• The L wildcard in the Day-of-month or Day-of-week fields specifies the last day of the month or week.
• The W the wildcard in the Day-of-month field specifies a weekday. The Day-of-month field, 3W specifies the weekday closest to the third day of the month.
• The # wildcard in the Day-of-week field specifies a certain instance of the specified day of the week within a month. For example, 3#2 would be the second Tuesday of the month: the 3 refers to Tuesday because it is the third day of each week, and the 2 refers to the second day of that type within the month.

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Examples

You can use the following sample cron strings when creating a rule with the schedule.

At 10:00 am (UTC+0) every day

At 12:15 pm (UTC+0) every day

Run at 6:00 pm (UTC+0) every Monday through Friday

At 8:00 am (UTC+0) every 1st day of the month

Every 15 minutes

Every 5 minutes Monday through Friday between 8:00 am and 5:55 pm (UTC+0)

Every 30 minutes Monday through Friday between 10:00 pm on the starting day to 2:00 am on the following day (UTC) Run from 12:00 am to 2:00 am on Monday morning (UTC)