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< 7 days
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Claude Opus 4.7 · n8n v1.71 · <80ms
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Core concepts
Intermediate

CRON / scheduled trigger

A time-based trigger that fires an automation at fixed intervals every morning at 7 AM, every Monday, the 1st of each month. CRON syntax defines the schedule. Used for reports, digests, and maintenance tasks.

Expert insight

Scheduled workflows have a failure mode webhook-triggered ones don't: nobody notices when they silently stop firing. A workflow triggered by a real event fails loudly when the event doesn't produce the expected result, but a CRON job that stops running just produces silence, no report shows up, no digest gets sent, and often nobody checks until a client asks where last week's report went. Scheduled workflows need their own separate monitoring, a check that confirms the job actually ran, not just that it works when tested manually.

In a real workflow

A cron expression "0 7 * * 1-5" runs the sales report at 7 am on weekdays.

Common mistakes

  • Forgetting which time zone the scheduler uses, so jobs run an hour early or late.
  • Scheduling heavy jobs at the same minute, which creates load spikes.

Complexity level

Intermediate

Requires some familiarity with automation concepts.

Quick facts

Category Core concepts
Level
Intermediate

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