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TSCron — A Google Forms Cron Scheduler powered by Google Apps Script

Introducing TSCron — an open source Google Forms based Cron scheduler powered by Google Apps Script.

Cron scheduling is available for:

• Minutes
• Hours
• Days
• Weeks
• Months
• Years
• Custom date/time (runs once)

Endless possibilities exist for TSCron:

• Send a Google Docs newsletter to clients on the 1st of every month
• Populate a Google Sheet with Google Analytics data every 4 weeks
• Email event attendees a link to Google Slides 1 hour after the presentation
• Notify warehouse managers of new regulations every 3 months on the 1st of the month
• Send an email to a colleague every 3 days
• Send yourself a list of goals every January 1st
• Add new todos to a Trello board every Sunday at 9:00 PM
• Send invoices to customers on the "last day" of every month
• Post a message to a Slack channel daily at 8:00 AM
• Automatically create a Sales Forecast presentation with Google Slides and share it with your manager every 6 months
• Send school activity updates to parents every Monday at 8:00 AM
• Run a backend microservice every 3 hours
• …

How It Works

A submission to a TSCron enabled Google Form initiates a new cron job (any previously scheduled cron job is removed).

Each form submission contains responses for both:

• pre-existing TSCron configuration form elements (i.e. cron interval configuration, start date and optional end date)
• any user defined form elements which are needed to implement the cron job

TSCron uses the configuration to “schedule” the new cron job at the selected start date/time and to “reschedule” the cron job at the desired cron interval. If an optional end date is specified, TSCron will stop the cron job at that date/time.

The form owner (or a form collaborator) implements the cron job in a provided cronJob() function using Google Apps Script. (TSCron executes this cronJob() function on the start date/time and on each repeating cron interval.)

Cron scheduling occurs in the form owner’s default time zone and takes into account:

• short months (e.g. February, April, June, September, November)
• leap years
• daylight savings time

Want your own copy of TSCron?

See the project, installation and getting started guide on Github:

techstreams/TSCron

Need help automating processes inside your G Suite organization? Get in touch

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