Quartz Cron syntax

Cron is a software utility that specifies commands to run on a given schedule. This schedule is defined by a Cron pattern, which has a specific syntax that will be described in this section.

For example, you can refresh the schema of a data source or synchronize Tableau or Amazon S3 metadata outside office hours to reduce the impact of these actions on the performance of your environment.

For example, you can create a schedule for LDAP synchronizations, Purge cycles or to automatically send emails using cron patterns. You can also use it to create a Cron map for your statistics.

Note By default, you use Spring Cron expressions to schedule Collibra Console back-ups.

Warning If you create an invalid Cron pattern, Collibra Data Intelligence Platform stops responding.

The Cron pattern consists of six or seven space-separated fields:

<second> <minute> <hour> <day of the month> <month> <day of the week> <year>

Position	Field	Mandatory	Allowed values	Allowed special characters	Examples
1	second	Yes	0-59	, - * /	10: at the 10th second. */10: every 10 seconds.
2	minute	Yes	0-59	, - * /	30: at the 30th minute. */15: every 15 minutes. 5/10: every 10 minutes starting at the 5th minute after the hour
3	hour	Yes	0-23	, - * /	10: at 10 o'clock. 8-10: at 8,9 and 10 AM. 6,18: at 6 AM and at 6 PM.
4	day of the month	Yes	1-31	, - * ? / L W	3: on the 3rd day of the month. 1-4: every first four days of the month. 1,15: the first day of the month and the 15th day of the month. L: on the last day of the month. L-3: on the third-to-last day of the month. 15W: on the nearest weekday to the 15th of the month. If the 15th is a Saturday, then the trigger will be on the 14th, if the 15th is a Sunday, then the trigger will be on the 16th. Note If the 1st day of the month is a Saturday, then 1W corresponds to the 3rd day of the month, since the month is specified in the 5th value of the Cron expression. LW: on the last weekday of the month.
5	month	Yes	1-12 or JAN-DEC	, - * /	12: in December. 1-3: every first three months of the year. JUL,AUG: every July and August. Tip The names of the months are not case-sensitive.
6	day of the week	Yes	1-7 or SUN-SAT	, - * ? / L #	TUE: every Tuesday. 2-6: every weekday, Monday to Friday. MON,WED,FRI: every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. L: on Saturday, the 7th day of the week. 2L: at the last Monday of the month. 6#3: on the 3rd Friday of the month. Tip The names of the days are not case-sensitive.
7	year	No	empty, 1970-2099	, - * /	<empty>: if your schedule doesn't require a year, you can leave this value empty. 2021: in 2021. 2021-2025: in the years 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. 2021,2022,2025: in the years 2021, 2022 and 2025.

Special characters

Character	Description
*	Used to select all values within a field. Example `*` in the minute field corresponds with every minute.
?	Used to specify something in one of the two fields in which the character is allowed, but not the other, mainly used for days of the week. Example If you want your trigger to fire on a particular day of the month, for example the 10th, but don't care what day of the week that happens to be, you could put "10" in the day-of-month field, and "?" in the day of the week field.
-	Used to specify ranges. Example `10-12` in the hour field means “the hours 10, 11 and 12”.
,	Used to specify additional values. Example `MON,WED,FRI` in the day-of-week field means “the days Monday, Wednesday, and Friday”.
/	Used to specify increments. Example `0/15` in the seconds field means “the seconds 0, 15, 30, and 45”. And `5/15` in the seconds field means “the seconds 5, 20, 35, and 50". You can also leave out the number before /, which is equivalent to having 0 before / . `1/3` in the day-of-month field means “fire every 3 days starting on the first day of the month”.
L	Has different meaning in each of the two fields in which it is allowed. The value `L` in the day-of-month field means “the last day of the month” - day 31 for January, day 28 for February on non-leap years. You can also specify an offset from the last day of the month, such as “L-3” which would mean the third-to-last day of the calendar month. If you use `L` in the day-of-week field by itself, it means “7” or “SAT”. But if used in the day-of-week field after another value, it means “the last xxx day of the month” - for example “6L” means “the last Friday of the month”. When using the `L` option, it is important not to specify lists, or ranges of values, because you may get unexpected results.
W	Used to specify the weekday (Monday-Friday) nearest the given day. Example `15W` in the value for the day-of-month field, means the nearest weekday to the 15th of the month: If the 15th is a Saturday, the trigger will fire on Friday the 14th. If the 15th is a Sunday, the trigger will fire on Monday the 16th. If the 15th is a Tuesday, then it will fire on Tuesday the 15th. However if you specify `1W` as the value for day-of-month, and the 1st is a Saturday, the trigger will fire on Monday the 3rd, as it will not ‘jump’ over the boundary of a month’s days. The ‘W’ character can only be specified when the value in the day-of-month field specifies a single day, not a range or list of days. Tip The 'L' and 'W' characters can also be combined in the day-of-month field to yield 'LW', which translates to "last weekday of the month".
#	Used to specify “the nth” XXX day of the month. Example `6#3` in the day-of-week field means “the third Friday of the month” (day 6 = Friday and “#3” = the 3rd one in the month). Other examples: `2#1` is the first Monday of the month and `4#5` is the fifth Wednesday of the month. Note that if you specify `#5` and there is not 5 of the given day-of-week in the month, then no firing will occur that month.

Example

0 0 * ? * * * = the top of every hour of every day.
*/10 * * * * ? = every ten seconds.
0 0 8-10 * * ? 2020 = 8, 9 and 10 o'clock of every day during the year 2020.
0 0 6,19 ? * * = 6:00 AM and 7:00 PM every day.
0 0/30 8-10 ? * * = 8:00, 8:30, 9:00, 9:30, 10:00 and 10:30 every day.
0 0 9-17 * * MON-FRI = on the hour nine-to-five weekdays.
0 0 0 25 12 ? = every Christmas Day at midnight, no matter what day of the week it is.
0 15 10 ? * 6L 2022-2025 = 10:15 AM on every Friday of every month during the years 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
0 30 11 ? * 6#2 = 11:30 AM on the second Friday of every month.

Warning Quartz Cron only supports a value in either the 4th or the 6th position, but not in both. At the same time, both positions cannot be empty.