Crontab

The software utility cron (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron) is a time-based job scheduler in Unix-like computer operating systems. People who set up and maintain software environments use cron to schedule jobs (commands or shell scripts) to run periodically at fixed times, dates, or intervals. It typically automates system maintenance or administration—though its general-purpose nature makes it useful for things like downloading files from the Internet and downloading email at regular intervals; “cron” is most suitable for scheduling repetitive tasks. Scheduling one-time tasks is often more easily accomplished using the associated “at” utility.

Command line utilities

A series of command are available via command line, and can be called with “python manage.py”. Available commands are:

  • create_export_dwh: create Excel export

  • create_monthly_period: create a current month period object in the database

  • update_currencies: update currency exchanges

  • check_website_status: check the status of the website

  • send_mails: send all mail messages with errors

  • dashboard_notification_creation: create mails for notification about dashboards

  • import_batch_command: import file groups listed under Admin->Imports->Batch

  • execute_queries_command: execute SQL queries listed under Admin->Imports->SQL Explorer

  • close_old_periods: Close the old periods. Users can’t import on that period after the deadline

  • insert_kpis_from_file: create all kpis based on kpi_list.xlsx file. Please use same column name for import

  • send_reminder_email_for_import: send email reminder if not all import are completed for By Whom

  • run_ml_files: execute the machine learnign procedure

Call the command via ./run-make.sh script. For example

./run-make.sh create_export_dwh

Scheduling activities

Once scripts are ready, it is possible to schedule their execution via crontab.

To edit the crontab use the command:

crontab -e

For example, one can add this list:

30 04 * * * /run-make.sh create_export_dwh
0 1 * * * ./run-make.sh populate_kpi_aval_table
0 0 1 * * ./run-make.sh create_monthly_period
0 0 2 * * ./run-make.sh update_currencies
0 0 1 * * ./run-make.sh do_clustering
0 0 1 * * ./run-make.sh send_reminder_email_for_import
0 4 * * * /run-make.sh run_ml_files