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# Scheduled Tasks

Scheduled tasks are used to perform a variety of tasks necessary for keeping your installation running smoothly. Scheduled tasks, sometimes referred to as "cron jobs," can be used to automatically purge stagnant tickets, check social media accounts, and check emails.

## Searching for Tasks

### Table sorting

By default the table is sorted alphabetically by name. Once the table has loaded you're able to change the sort column by clicking the up/down arrows:

- Down arrow: descending order
- Up arrow: ascending order

This action is only temporary and will disappear once the page has been reloaded.

### Filtering the table

It's possible to filter the tasks by name or description:

1. Visit **Settings -> Core -> Scheduled Tasks** and click "Filter Results".
2. Search terms: 
    1. **Name** - Partial search for the name, for example "Ema" would find "Check email accounts".
    2. **Description** - Optionally search for the description of what the task does.
3. The table will be filtered automatically as you enter search terms.

## Frequency of Tasks

To change the frequency at which a scheduled task runs, click on either the name of the task or the pencil icon at the end of the row containing the scheduled task on the **Scheduled Tasks** screen, found at **Settings -> Core -> Scheduled Tasks**.

On the **Edit Scheduled Task** screen that will display, the frequency of the current run schedule is shown, broken down into minutes, hours, days of the month, months, and days of the week. For a complete understanding of what these symbols mean, please refer to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron>.

There is also a drop down menu of commonly used scheduled task settings available. It is recommended that non-advanced users use this drop down, as opposed to setting the scheduled task manually, to ensure that each task runs properly.

## Automatic Resetting of Tasks

In some situations, it may occur that the cron job stops functioning by itself or due to other unforeseen circumstances, causing the scheduled task to get stuck as we use a running flag to stop it overlapping. In this case, the scheduled task will automatically be reset after 15 minutes.

A task can occasionally get stuck if it's trying to do too much in one go, e.g. a very large number of emails come in, and can be ignored in these instances. If a task is getting stuck constantly, please contact our support team.

## Running Scheduled Tasks Manually

Click on **Settings -> **Core ->** Scheduled Tasks**. On the **Scheduled Tasks** screen, click the circular arrow icon at the end of the row on which the scheduled task is listed. This will cause the scheduled task to be run manually a single time. For example, if you wanted to retrieve a new Facebook post and convert it to a ticket before the Facebook scheduled task is set to be run, click the circular arrow icon, and the task will be run a single time. This will not interrupt the task from continuing to run automatically, but it will wait for the set interval before the next run.