Why are my scheduled executions running even outside the cron-defined time frame?

[JFrentz]

Hi, 

I use time-based tagging to trigger a set of workflows in Dataform. I just noticed that it runs even outside of the timeframe defined in cron.

My workflow configuration with the "10m_oh" tag should run every 10 minutes during office hours, with the last run at 6:50 PM.

However, in the logs, I noticed that this specific workflow "10m_oh" actually runs every 10 minutes even outside of the specified hours.

It's unclear when this started, but it might have been happening for months. The unwanted cost related to this bug is unknown at this point.

What am I missing?

[NorieRam]

Hi @JFrentz,

Welcome to Google Cloud Community!

Your workflow is running outside of office hours because your cron job might be set to run every 10 minutes, regardless of the time of day. The "10m_oh" tag doesn't control when the workflow runs, only what happens within a run. 

To limit executions to office hours, adjust your cron expression to include the specific time range, like 0,10,20,30,40,50 9-18 * * 1-5 (for 9 am to 6:50 pm, Monday to Friday).

Here are some references that might be helpful to you:

• Schedule executions with workflow configurations
• Authenticate to Dataform
• Cron job format and time zone

Note: If you disable the Cloud Scheduler API while a running job is scheduled and then re-enable it later, any job that failed to run in the interim runs immediately, and not at the next scheduled time. 

I hope the above information is helpful.

[JFrentz · Accepted solution]

Hi,

If you look at the image, the cron is correctly configured.
But it seems to be a time zone issue, the cron needs to be defined in utc.