Schedule apex one time

Question

I am planning to schedule apex from my class if it meets certain conditions. Is it possible to schedule apex for a single time? If yes is it done using Cron expression or any other method.

Answer 1

If your class implements Database.Batchable, you can also use System.scheduleBatch to run a batch X minutes in the future. This negates the need for a scheduled class entirely. You can also daisy chain these together if you want to run perpetually every X minutes by calling the batch again in the finish method.

Answer 2

Cron expression can we used to run job for any given time. You can schedule for with following expression

0 0 5 1 MAR ? 2019

which means run on

You can use following tool to generate your cron expression: http://www.freeformatter.com/cron-expression-generator-quartz.html

Please note that Salesforce doesn't allow wildcard for seconds and minutes. Refer following table for valid cron expression value

Answer 3

From the document - Run a scheduled Apex job once

Using Scheduled Apex UI you can not set a scheduled class to run only once, it's always recurring. So, you'll need to use System.scheduled via the system log to implement a workaround.

After the apex is scheduled, Abort the job by adding a finish method to your class that implements the Schedulable Interface. This stops the job from running more than once.

Example code for running a job 10 minutes from now only once

String hour = String.valueOf(Datetime.now().hour());
String min = String.valueOf(Datetime.now().minute() + 10); String ss = String.valueOf(Datetime.now().second());

//parse to cron expression
String nextFireTime = ss + ' ' + min + ' ' + hour + ' * * ?';

MyScheduledJob s = new MyScheduledJob(); System.schedule('Job Started At ' + String.valueOf(Datetime.now()), nextFireTime, s);