Timer events are used to influence events at specific times, after a set amount of time has passed or at intervals. All timer events use the international standard ISO 8601 for specifying time formats.
Timer events are displayed as a clock icon inside different shapes that differentiate between the event types.
timeDate
The timeDate property for timer events defines a specific date and time in ISO 8601 format for when the trigger will be fired and can include a specified time zone.
The following is an example of the timerEventDefinition using a timeDate property:
- 2017-05-17 represents 17 May 2017 in YYYY-MM-DD format.
- T12:42:23 represents the time of 12:42:23 in hh:mm:ss format.
- Z indicates that the time format is in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). The time can also contain UTC offsets, such as +01 for one hour ahead of UTC. When an offset is defined, the Z is not required (for example: T12:42:23+01).
timeDuration
The timeDuration property for timer events defines how long a timer should wait in ISO 8601 format before the trigger is fired.
The following are the letters used to refer to duration:
| Letter | Description |
|---|---|
| P | Designates that the following letters and numbers represent a duration. Must always be present. |
| Y | Indicates that the preceding numerical value represents the number of years. For example, P2Y signifies 2 years. |
| M | Indicates that the preceding numerical value represents the number of months. For example, P3Y4M signifies 3 years and 4 months. |
| W | Indicates that the preceding numerical value represents the number of weeks. For example, P10W signifies 10 weeks. |
| D | Indicates that the preceding numerical value represents the number of days. For example, P1Y1M1D signifies 1 year, 1 month and 1 day. |
| T | Designates that the following letters represent a duration measured in units of time less than a day. Must always be present to refer to hours, minutes and seconds. |
| H | Indicates that the preceding numerical value represents the number of hours. For example, P1DT0.5H signifies 1 day and one half hour. |
| M | Indicates that the preceding numerical value represents the number of minutes. For example, PT1M signifies 1 minute. |
| S | Indicates that the preceding numerical value represents the number of seconds. For example, P2Y3M4DT5H6M7S signifies 2 years, 3 months, 4 days, 5 hours, 6 minutes and 7 seconds. |
timeCycle
The timeCycle property for timer events defines intervals for the trigger to fire at. Intervals can be defined using the time intervals that adhere to the ISO 8601 standard or by using cron expressions.
Time intervals
Time intervals use the syntax R/ to set a number of repetitions, for example R5/ would repeat five times.
Following the repetition, a duration can be set for when the repetition occurs, for example R5/PT10H would repeat every 10 hours, five times.
An optional end date can also be set after the duration and separated by a / character.
Cron expression intervals
Cron expressions can also be used to define repeating triggers for timer events.