# Scheduled Events and Activities

Scheduling timers support the configuration of certain Catalyst activities to start at a particular calendar date and time and repeat at a particular periodicity. Table 2.6A lists all Catalyst features that support scheduling.

There are 2 main components in any schedule:

1. Base Time:Specifies the precise calendar date and time at which the activity should commence for the first time in the current year.
2. Frequency:Specifies the periodicity at which the activity should recur. Value must be in range of 10 seconds to 12 months.

In general, each of these two components consists of 5 sub-fields allowing configuration of months, days, hours, minutes and seconds. Some features do not require the full range of resolution and so do not provide control over certain sub-fields.

TABLE 2.6A

Examples (components specified as MO:DD:HH:MM)

- Monthly, at midnight on the 15th:
- BASE=01:15:00:00 and FREQ=01:00:00:00
- Every 30 days, at 9:00AM., starting on January 5th:
- BASE=01:05:09:00 and FREQ=00:30:00:00
- Weekly, 2:00PM on Thursdays:
- BASE=00:04:14:00 and FREQ=00:07:00:00
- Every other Monday at 10:00AM:
- BASE=00:01:10:00 and FREQ=00:14:00:00
- Daily at Midnight:
- BASE=00:00:00:00 and FREQ=00:01:00:00. (BASE=01:01:00:00 will also work).
- Sorts of Things That One Can Do, But Would Probably Never Want:
- Weekly at 9:00AM, starting only on June 17:
- Nothing will happen Jan-June this year, next year and each year thereafter.
- Every 13 days, 17 hours, 41 minutes and 56 seconds:
- The “schedule” will appear quite random.
- Jan 5, every 30 days:
- First expiration in any year occurs on Jan 5. Last expiration would be Dec 31 or 30 (leap years). First expiration next year is still Jan5. Note that interval between these last two periods is only 5 (or 6) days.
- Anything where the FREQ component is not commensurate with the BASE:
- The last examples above are special cases of this general situation. They all will cause the events to happen at shifting dates and times, and/or the periodicity to change abruptly sometime near the end of the year. Incommensurate configurations are not prevented but may give unexpected (although predictable) results.

Sorts of Things We Can Not Do:

- First Wed of every month:
- You can specify day of week or date in month, but not both.
- Every 90 days:
- 3 months are not always 90 days, and the maximum value for DD field is 30.
- Monthly, on the 31st:
- When a month does not have the specified date, the next expiration happens on the date that would give the expected number of days. Thereafter, expires monthly on that new date (until a new year starts).
- Mother’s Day, Labor Day, Election Day, etc:
- There is no facility to get “first Tuesday after first Monday” sorts of definitions, and no way to specify an interval greater than 1 year.
- Easter, Ramadan, Passover, Chinese New Year, etc:
- There is no facility to synchronize schedules with the phases of the moon or other geo-astronomical phenomena.
- Weekdays only, Weekends Only:
- Workaround for destinations would be to configure multiple objects with the single days of week that would accumulate to the desired groups of days.