Setting up a Scheduled Task for your Plugin

Ther are two parts to setting up a scheduled task in your plugin.

• Create the task class under classes\task with an appropriate name using the template shown.
• Define the task and default schedule in db\tasks.php

Creating the task class

First, create the directory structure classes\task in your plugin folder. You will need to create at least the task directory and perhaps the classes one as well.

Here's the basic template for a scheduled task using the example of a local plugin called yourplugin as a placeholder. This file would be saved as example_task.php to to match the name of the class.

/**
 * {Example_task} class definition
 *
 * @package     local/yourplugin
 * @author      Your Name
 * @license     http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU GPL v3 or later
 */

namespace local_yourplugin\task;

use core\task\scheduled_task;

class example_task extends scheduled_task {

    /**
     * Get scheduled task name.
     *
     * @return string
     * @throws \coding_exception
     */
    public function get_name() {
        return get_string("exampletaskname", "local_yourplugin");
    }

    /**
     * Execute the scheduled task.
     */
    public function execute() {
        global $CFG;
        require_once($CFG->dirroot . '/local/yourplugin/locallib.php');
        local_yourplugin_execute_task();
    }
}

A few things to note about this code:

• You need an entry for exampletaskname in your plugin's language pack that is the readable name of the task (used by get_name() method) and shown on the scheduled tasks page.
• The execute() method includes $CFG and includes the locallib.php for your plugin where you define the details of the local_yourplugin_execute_task() function.

Define the task schedule

The file tasks.php can then be created in the db\ folder. Here's an example of how this is defined using the $tasks array. If your plugin has more than one scheduled task, simply add another child array.

/**
 * Schedule tasks
 *
 * @package     local/yourplugin
 * @author      Your Name
 * @license     http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU GPL v3 or later
 */
 
 $tasks = [
    [
        'classname' => 'local_yourplugin\task\example_task',
        'blocking' => 0,
        'minute' => 0,
        'hour' => 6,
        'day' => '*',
        'month' => '*',
        'dayofweek' => '*',
        'disabled' => 1
    ]
]

In this example:

• The namespace to the class definition is used for the classname so make sure you have namespaced your task class accordingly.
• The default scheduled is to run every day at 6am
• The task is disabled by default