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Schedule a synchronization job

A Job wraps a recurring task — most often a Synchronization — and runs it on a schedule. OpenConnector's job runner integrates with Nextcloud's background jobs so once a job is enabled the schedule fires without anyone keeping a browser tab open.

Goal​

By the end you will have wrapped one of your synchronizations in a job, set a cron schedule, and seen the scheduled run fire and appear in the Job Logs.

Prerequisites​

  • You are an administrator on the Nextcloud instance, or your user has been granted the OpenConnector configuration role.
  • You have at least one Synchronization that runs cleanly on demand (see Run a synchronization).
  • Nextcloud's background-jobs subsystem is healthy on the instance — occ background-job:list shows job runs and cron.php is wired (AJAX is OK but cron is recommended for production).

Steps​

  1. From the navigation, click Jobs and then Add Job.

    Jobs list with Add Job

  2. Name the job, pick Synchronization as the action, and pick which synchronization the job should run. Save.

    Add Job dialog

  3. On the job detail page, open the Schedule tab. Enter the cron expression — 0 */6 * * * for every six hours, */15 * * * * for every fifteen minutes, and so on. Enable the job with the Enabled toggle.

    Job schedule configuration

  4. Trigger one run manually with the Run now action to confirm everything is wired. The run appears in the Job Logs with status, duration, and the synchronization summary.

    Job test run

  5. Wait for the next scheduled tick (or check back after the next cron interval). Each scheduled run appears in Job Logs with the same shape as a manual run.

    Job logs over time

Verification​

You are done when: the manual Run now completes with a success status, the cron expression validates without errors, and the next scheduled tick produces a new entry in Job Logs without a manual trigger.

Common issues​

SymptomFix
Manual Run now works but scheduled ticks never fireNextcloud background jobs are not running — switch the cron mode to Cron on the instance and confirm cron.php is invoked from a system cron.
Cron expression rejected as invalidOpenConnector uses the standard 5-field cron format (min hour day month weekday); 6-field expressions (with seconds) are not supported.
Job runs at the right time but reports 0 changes every tickThe underlying synchronization is up to date — that's a healthy steady state. To verify the job is doing real work, change one source object and wait for the next tick.

Reference​