Scheduled trigger

A scheduled trigger launches an execution automatically, at the time or frequency you define with a cron expression. This is what turns an automation into something that truly runs alone: ​​every night, every Monday, every 15 minutes, without anyone having to remember.

Create a scheduled trigger

1. Pick the environment at the top right and open Centro › Robots › Disparadores (Center › Robots › Triggers).
2. Click Nuevo disparador (New trigger). A four-step wizard opens:
   • Qué ejecuta (What it runs): Un proceso (a process) or Un flujo (a flow), and which one.
   • Cuándo corre (When it runs): Un horario (a schedule). Pick the frequency (Todos los días, every day; Lunes a viernes, Monday to Friday; Ciertos días de la semana, certain weekdays; Una vez al mes, once a month; Cada cierto número de horas or minutos, every N hours or minutes; or Personalizado (expresión cron), a custom cron expression) and the time zone. The Próximas ejecuciones (Next runs) panel shows when it will run.
   • Dónde corre (Where it runs): the machine and the robot session and, optionally, each execution’s maximum duration.
   • Revisar y crear (Review and create): give it a name (e.g. Conciliación nocturna) and click Crear disparador (Create trigger). It is active as soon as it is created.

From there, Zoan Cloud creates a run every time the clock matches the cron expression, in the chosen time zone.

The cron expression

The cron expression defines the schedule. For example, 0 8 * * 1-5 means “Monday to Friday at 8:00 a.m.” You have the complete reference with examples in Cron Expressions.

Zona horaria

The time is interpreted in the time zone you select, not UTC by default. Choosing the right one is essential for the process to run when you expect.

Colombia

Use America/Bogota (UTC-5, no daylight saving time).

Beware of daylight saving time (DST)

If your area applies daylight saving time, a run scheduled at a specific time may skip or repeat on the day of the change. For critical processes, avoid scheduling them in the time slot where the adjustment occurs (usually early morning).

Activar y desactivar

You can enable or disable a trigger at any time from the list, without deleting it. A disabled trigger does not generate executions even if its scheduled time arrives — useful for pausing a process during maintenance or while you correct something, without losing its configuration.

What should be programmed?

Schedule processes that must occur on their own, recurrently, and at a known time — without anyone having to remember to launch them.

Buen candidato a programar	Example
Tareas recurrentes de calendario	Bank reconciliation every night; sales report every Monday 8 a.m.
Processes that depend on a closure or cut	Billing at month-end; payroll biweekly
Periodic surveys	Check a mailbox or folder every 15 minutes
Feed a queue (dispatcher)	Queue the day’s invoices at 6 a.m. for bots to process
Mantenimientos fuera de horario	Cleaning or backups at dawn, when the systems are free

Do not schedule it if the process is triggered by a specific action (launched by a person when needed → manual execution; called by another system → webhook trigger) or if it depends on an unpredictable external event instead of the clock.

Programar vs. cola

They are not exclusive, they are combined: the scheduled trigger decides when the work starts; the queue distributes that work among several bots. The typical pattern is a trigger that, at a fixed time, launches the dispatcher process that fills the queue.

Good practices

• Verify first with a manual execution that the process runs well, and only then schedule it.
• Ensures there is an agent online in the scheduled slot. If the process runs at 2 a.m., the agent (ideally an unattended service) must be on and logged in at that time.
• Do not overlap executions: if a process can take longer than the interval between runs (e.g. every 5 min but sometimes it takes 8), take this into account so as not to accumulate executions.
• An explicit time zone avoids surprises; Don’t depend on default values.

Next steps

• Start cases of a flow — a scheduled trigger can also start a flow.
• Expresiones cron — sintaxis y ejemplos.
• Agent Monitoring — ensure availability at the scheduled time.
• Run Logs — check that automatic runs are working.