A task on a timetable
A cron job can run every night at 2 am or every 15 minutes. It starts automatically, without anyone pressing a button. Teams use them for reports, reminders, backups, and maintenance.
The name comes from Unix, but other systems have similar schedulers. Important jobs run on a server or cloud service so they do not depend on someone’s laptop being left on.
Check that it ran
A schedule does not guarantee success. Jobs can fail, run twice, or overlap with an earlier run. Teams record the result, alert someone when a job fails, and avoid duplicate actions such as charging a customer twice. They also account for time zones and daylight-saving changes.