Scheduled Tasks

Overview

A scheduled task does something to your hotline at a time you choose, without anyone touching the app. It can publish the next recording in an audio player, open or close an exam, or change where a menu key sends callers. Tasks run on a clock, on your account's timezone, and every run is logged so you can see exactly what happened.

Find them in the sidebar under Advanced → Schedule Tasks. (The Advanced group is collapsed by default; click it to open.)

How It Works

1. You set a name, a frequency, and a time.
2. The system works out the next run and shows it in the Next Run column.
3. At that time the task performs its action and writes a log entry.
4. The next run is calculated again from there, and the cycle repeats until the end date, the maximum number of runs, or there is simply no next run left.

Times are worked out in your account's timezone and stored in UTC, so a 9:00 AM task stays at 9:00 AM for you all year.

Basic Information

• Task Name — required. A name that tells you what this does at a glance.
• Description — optional, for your own reference.
• Active — on by default. An inactive task never runs, but keeps its settings.

Schedule Configuration

• Timezone — display only. It shows the timezone from your account and cannot be changed here. To change it, go to Account Settings (or the Account panel on My Hotline).
• Frequency — required, Daily by default. One of Once, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, At a zman (sunset, candle lighting, …), or On Jewish days (yom tov, erev Shabbos, …). The last two are explained under Jewish calendar scheduling below.
• Execution Time — required for the ordinary frequencies, 09:00 by default. The time of day in your account timezone. Minutes only, no seconds. Hidden for At a zman; on On Jewish days it is called At a fixed time and disappears once you pick a zman instead.
• Start Date — required, today by default. Nothing runs before this date.
• End Date (Optional) — must be after the start date. Leave it empty for no end date.
• Maximum Runs (Optional) — stop after this many runs. Leave it empty for unlimited.

The extra fields per frequency

• Days of Week — a required checklist of Monday through Sunday. Tick every day the task should run.
• Monthly Pattern — Specific day of month (the default) or Nth weekday (e.g., first Monday).
• Day of Month — 1 to 31, for the Specific day of month pattern, and for yearly tasks.
• Which Occurrence — First, Second, Third, Fourth, or Last, for the Nth weekday pattern.
• Day of Week — Monday through Sunday, for the Nth weekday pattern.
• Month — January through December, for yearly tasks.

Jewish Calendar Scheduling

Two frequencies and a condition let a task follow the Jewish calendar instead of the clock. They all need a place to compute from, see Zmanim location below.

At a zman

Runs every day at a halachic time instead of a fixed hour. Which zman? offers: Alos hashachar (72 min), Misheyakir, Netz (sunrise), Sof zman krias Shema (GRA), Sof zman tefila (GRA), Chatzos, Mincha gedola, Mincha ketana, Plag hamincha, Candle lighting (18 min before shkia), Shkia (sunset), Tzais (8.5°), Tzais (72 min). Offset (minutes) shifts it: negative is before the zman (-5 is five minutes before shkia), positive is after. The actual clock time changes every day, and the task list shows the next one.

On Jewish days

Runs on every matching day, year after year. On which Jewish day? offers: every erev Shabbos / erev Yom Tov (a day with candle lighting), every Shabbos and Yom Tov day, every erev Shabbos (Friday), every Shabbos, every Rosh Chodesh, Erev Rosh Hashana, Rosh Hashana, Erev Yom Kippur, Yom Kippur, Erev Succos, Succos (including Chol Hamoed), Hoshana Rabba, Shmini Atzeres, Simchas Torah, Chanukah, Purim, Erev Pesach, Pesach (including Chol Hamoed), Erev Shavuos, Shavuos, Tisha B'Av, every fast day, or A specific Jewish date (then pick the Jewish month and Day of the month).

Then choose when on that day: At a fixed time (a clock time in your timezone), or Or at a zman instead with an offset. Pick one or the other: choosing a zman hides the fixed time. The Israel / Diaspora scheme (second day of Yom Tov) follows the location.

A typical pair: "switch the main menu to the Shabbos message at candle lighting on every erev Shabbos / erev Yom Tov" plus "switch it back at tzais (72 min) on every Shabbos and Yom Tov day".

Calendar condition

In the Jewish Calendar section, any task of any frequency can carry a Calendar condition: Run always (default), Skip on Shabbos & Yom Tov, Only on Shabbos & Yom Tov, Skip on Yom Tov (Shabbos still runs), or Skip on fast days. The check is made at the real melacha window, from candle lighting until tzais, not at midnight. A skipped run is written to the log with status Skipped and the reason, and the task moves on to its next slot.

Zmanim location

Zmanim need a place. Zmanim location on the task picks a city for this task alone; leave it blank to follow the account's Location (city) from Account Settings. When neither is set, the system tries to detect a location from your first phone number. If you choose a zman and no location is known, the task form asks for a city. The helper text under the field tells you which location and timezone will be used, and whether the Eretz Yisroel calendar applies.

Action Configuration

Action to Perform chooses what the task does. Changing it resets the target fields below, so you cannot pair "open an exam" with an audio player by accident.

Make Active Library Recording

Activates one recording inside an audio player. It is how you publish a new shiur, a new story, or the next announcement on a timetable.

• Target Type — fixed to Library (the audio player).
• Select Target — which audio player.
• Recording Order — Highest Order (the default) or Lowest Order. The task looks at the recordings in that player that are not active yet and activates the one at that end of the order.

If every recording in that player is already active, the run fails with "No recordings found in library: …".

Open / close an exam

Turns an exam on or off at a set time.

• Target Type — fixed to Exam.
• Select Target — which exam.
• When this task runs, the exam should be — Open — callers can take it or Closed — callers hear the closed message.

Pair two tasks, one to open and one to close, for a recurring window: "open Sunday 8:00 PM, close Sunday 10:00 PM" gives you a two hour exam every week. A closed exam plays its closed message and follows its If the exam is closed route.

Change where a menu key / route goes

Re-points one route at a chosen time. This is how you build a day line and a night line, or send callers somewhere else over Yom Tov.

• Change a route on — the kind of block whose route is changing. Available sources: Menu, Exam, Access check, Message box, Play recording, Audio player, Forward call, Conference, Custom code, Go to, CallMagic.

• Select Target — which one.

• Which key / route — for a Menu, the key the caller presses (1–9, 0, *, #); for everything else, that block's own named routes:

  Source	Routes offered
  Menu	Key 1–9, 0, *, #, If the caller presses nothing, If the caller presses a wrong key
  Exam	If the caller passes, If the caller fails, If the exam is closed
  Access check	If the caller passes, If the caller is turned away
  Message box	After the message is saved
  Play recording	Afterwards
  Audio player	If there are no recordings yet
  Forward call	After the call ends
  Conference	After the conference ends
  Custom code	Afterwards
  Go to	Send the caller to
  CallMagic	After the action

• New destination type — Menu, Audio player, Play recording, Message box, Exam, Access check, Forward call, Dial out, Conference, Go to, Custom code, or Bookmark.

• New destination — the specific one. When the task runs, the key or route above will send callers here.

Pair two tasks (morning and evening) to switch back and forth. If the route did not exist before, the task creates it.

More about routes and what they mean is on How Routing Works.

What Stops a Task

A task will not run if any of these is true:

• Active is off.
• It is already running. There is no concurrent execution: a task that is still working on its previous run is skipped.
• It has reached its Maximum Runs.
• Today is past its End Date.
• There is no next run date on file.
• Its Calendar condition says to skip this day (the run is logged as Skipped, not failed).

Auto-completing

When the next run cannot be worked out any more (a Once task that has already run, a task past its end date, and so on), the task sets its status to Completed and turns Active off by itself. That is the usual explanation for "my task turned itself off", and it is not an error.

When a run fails

A failed run is written to the log with status Failed and the error message, the task's status becomes Failed, and the task then skips to its next scheduled slot. It does not retry the same failing run every minute. Fix the cause and the next slot runs normally.

Monitoring

The task list

Columns: Task Name (with its description, or "Runs daily" style text underneath), Frequency, Active, Status, Next Run (with "In 3 hours" underneath), and Runs. Sorted by the next run, soonest first.

Hidden until you turn them on from the column menu: Last Run, Created, Last Updated, Deleted.

Status is one of Pending, Running, Completed, Failed, or Paused.

Filters: Frequency, Status, Active Status, and Trashed.

Deleting a task is a soft delete. Switch the Trashed filter to see deleted tasks, then use the bulk Restore action to bring them back, or Force delete to remove them for good.

The run log

Open a task and its logs are listed underneath, newest first:

• Status — success, failed, or partial.
• Started at — when the run began.
• Duration — how long it took.
• Output — what the task did, in words, for example Key 1 of "Main Menu" now goes to Audio player "Night announcements" or Exam "Weekly test" opened.
• Error message — shown in red when the run failed.

Common Patterns

• A new shiur every morning. Upload the week's recordings into one audio player with them inactive, then a Daily task at 6:00 AM with Make Active Library Recording and Lowest Order publishes one a day, in order.
• A day line and a night line. Two Daily tasks with Change where a menu key / route goes on the same key: one at 8:00 AM pointing it at the office forward, one at 6:00 PM pointing it at a message box.
• A weekly exam window. Two Weekly tasks on the same exam, Open at the start and Closed at the end.
• A one-off switch for Yom Tov. A Once task with the date and the new destination, and a second one for the day after to put it back.

Tips

• Check the Next Run column after saving. If it is empty, something about the schedule cannot produce a date.
• Editing a task re-plans its next run, so a small change can move the next run forward.
• Use the description field. Six months later, "Switch key 3 to night voicemail" is worth a lot more than "Task 4".
• Tasks that respond to an event rather than a clock are Event Tasks, a separate list.