New-JobTrigger

Creates a job trigger for a scheduled job.

Syntax

New-JobTrigger
   [-RandomDelay <TimeSpan>]
   -At <DateTime>
   [-Once]
   [-RepetitionInterval <TimeSpan>]
   [-RepetitionDuration <TimeSpan>]
   [-RepeatIndefinitely]
   [<CommonParameters>]
New-JobTrigger
   [-DaysInterval <Int32>]
   [-RandomDelay <TimeSpan>]
   -At <DateTime>
   [-Daily]
   [<CommonParameters>]
New-JobTrigger
   [-WeeksInterval <Int32>]
   [-RandomDelay <TimeSpan>]
   -At <DateTime>
   -DaysOfWeek<DayOfWeek[]>
   [-Weekly]
   [<CommonParameters>]
New-JobTrigger
   [-RandomDelay <TimeSpan>]
   [-AtStartup]
   [<CommonParameters>]
New-JobTrigger
   [-RandomDelay <TimeSpan>]
   [-User <String>]
   [-AtLogOn]
   [<CommonParameters>]

Description

The New-JobTrigger cmdlet creates a job trigger that starts a scheduled job on a one-time or recurring schedule, or when an event occurs.

You can use the ScheduledJobTrigger object that New-JobTrigger returns to set a job trigger for a new or existing scheduled job. You can also create a job trigger with the Get-JobTrigger cmdlet to get the job trigger of an existing scheduled job, or with a hash table value to represent a job trigger.

When creating a job trigger, review the default values of the options specified by the New-ScheduledJobOption cmdlet. These options, which have the same valid and default values as the corresponding options in Task Scheduler, affect the scheduling and timing of scheduled jobs.

New-JobTrigger is one of a collection of job scheduling cmdlets in the PSScheduledJob module that is included in Windows PowerShell.

For more information about Scheduled Jobs, see the About topics in the PSScheduledJob module. Import the PSScheduledJob module and then type: Get-Help about_Scheduled* or see about_Scheduled_Jobs.

This cmdlet was introduced in Windows PowerShell 3.0.

Examples

Example 1: Once Schedule

This example creates a job trigger to start a scheduled job only once.

New-JobTrigger -Once -At "1/20/2012 3:00 AM"

The New-JobTrigger cmdlet to create a job trigger that starts a scheduled job only one time. The value of the At parameter is a string that Windows PowerShell converts into a DateTime object.

The At parameter value includes an explicit date, not just a time. If the date were omitted, the trigger would be created with the current date and 3:00 AM time, which is likely to represent a time in the past.

Example 2: Daily Schedule

This example creates a new job trigger to start a scheduled job every third day.

New-JobTrigger -Daily -At "4:15 AM" -DaysInterval 3

This command creates a job trigger that starts a scheduled job every 3 days at 4:15 a.m.

Because the value of the At parameter does not include a date, the current date is used as the date value in the DateTime object. If the date and time is in the past, the scheduled job is started at the next occurrence, which is 3 days later from the At parameter value.

Example 3: Weekly Schedule

This example creates a job trigger that starts a scheduled job every fourth week on specified days of that week.

New-JobTrigger -Weekly -DaysOfWeek Monday, Wednesday, Friday -At "23:00" -WeeksInterval 4

Id Frequency Time                  DaysOfWeek                  Enabled
-- --------- ----                  ----------                  -------
0  Weekly    9/21/2012 11:00:00 PM {Monday, Wednesday, Friday} True

This command creates a job trigger to start a scheduled job on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 2300 hours (11:00 PM) every 4 weeks.

You can also enter the DaysOfWeek parameter value in integers, such as -DaysOfWeek 1, 5.

Example 4: Logon Schedule

This example creates a job trigger to start a scheduled job at logon of a specific user.

New-JobTrigger -AtLogOn -User Domain01\Admin01

This command creates a job trigger to start a scheduled job whenever the domain administrator logs onto the computer.

Example 5: Using a Random Delay

This example creates a new job trigger with a random time-span delay.

New-JobTrigger -Daily -At 1:00 -RandomDelay 00:20:00

This command creates a job trigger to start a scheduled job every day at 1:00 in the morning. The command uses the RandomDelay parameter to set the maximum delay to 20 minutes. As a result, the job runs every day between 1:00 AM and 1:20 AM, with the interval varying pseudo-randomly.

You can use a random delay for sampling, load balancing, and other administrative tasks. When setting the delay value, review the effective and default values of the New-ScheduledJobOption cmdlet and coordinate the delay with the option settings.

Example 6: Create a Job Trigger for a New Scheduled Job

These example uses a job trigger to create a new scheduled job.

$t = New-JobTrigger -Weekly -DaysOfWeek 1,3,5 -At 12:01AM
Register-ScheduledJob -Name Test-HelpFiles -FilePath C:\Scripts\Test-HelpFiles.ps1 -Trigger $t

The first command uses the New-JobTrigger cmdlet to create a job trigger that starts a job every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 12:01 AM. The command saves the job trigger in the $t variable.

The second command uses the Register-ScheduledJob cmdlet to create a scheduled job that starts a job every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 12:01 AM. The value of the Trigger parameter is the trigger that is stored in the $t variable.

Example 7: Add a Job Trigger to a Scheduled Job

This example shows how to add a job trigger to an existing scheduled job.

Add-JobTrigger -Name SynchronizeApps -Trigger (New-JobTrigger -Daily -At 3:10AM)

You can add multiple job triggers to any scheduled job.

The command uses the Add-JobTrigger cmdlet to add the job trigger to the SynchronizeApps scheduled job. The value of the Trigger parameter is a New-JobTrigger command that runs the job every day at 3:10 AM.

When the command completes, SynchronizeApps is a scheduled job that runs at the times specified by the job trigger.

Example 8: Create a repeating job trigger

This example creates a repeating job trigger to only run for a specific amount of time.

New-JobTrigger -Once -At "09/12/2013 1:00:00" -RepetitionInterval (New-TimeSpan -Hours 1) -RepetitionDuration (New-Timespan -Hours 48)

This command creates a job trigger that runs a job every 60 minutes for 48 hours beginning on September 12, 2013 at 1:00 AM.

Example 9: Stop a repeating job trigger

This example stops a repeating job trigger.

Get-JobTrigger -Name SecurityCheck | Set-JobTrigger -RepetitionInterval 0:00 -RepetitionDuration 0:00

This command forcibly stops the SecurityCheck job, which is triggered to run every 60 minutes until its job trigger expires.

To prevent the job from repeating, the command uses the Get-JobTrigger to get the job trigger of the SecurityCheck job and the Set-JobTrigger cmdlet to change the repetition interval and repetition duration of the job trigger to zero (0).

Example 10: Create an hourly job trigger

This example creates a repeating job trigger that runs indefinitely.

New-JobTrigger -Once -At "9/21/2012 0am" -RepetitionInterval (New-TimeSpan -Hour 12) -RepetitionDuration ([TimeSpan]::MaxValue)

The following command creates a job trigger that runs a scheduled job once every 12 hours for an indefinite period of time. The schedule begins tomorrow (9/21/2012) at midnight (0:00 AM).

Parameters

-At

Starts the job at the specified date and time. Enter a DateTime object, such as one that the Get-Date cmdlet returns, or a string that can be converted to a date and time, such as April 19, 2012 15:00, 12/31, or 3am. If you don't specify an element of the date, such as the year, the date in the trigger has the corresponding element from the current date.

When using the Once parameter, set the value of the At parameter to a future date and time. Because the default date in a DateTime object is the current date, if you specify a time before the current time without an explicit date, the job trigger is created for a time in the past.

DateTime objects, and strings that are converted to DateTime objects, are automatically adjusted to be compatible with the date and time formats selected for the local computer in Region and Language in Control Panel.

Type:DateTime
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-AtLogOn

Starts the scheduled job when the specified users log on to the computer. To specify a user, use the User parameter.

Type:SwitchParameter
Position:0
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-AtStartup

Starts the scheduled job when Windows starts.

Type:SwitchParameter
Position:0
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-Daily

Specifies a recurring daily job schedule. Use the other parameters in the Daily parameter set to specify the schedule details.

Type:SwitchParameter
Position:0
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-DaysInterval

Specifies the number of days between occurrences on a daily schedule. For example, a value of 3 starts the scheduled job on days 1, 4, 7 and so on. The default value is 1.

Type:Int32
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-DaysOfWeek

Specifies the days of the week on which a weekly scheduled job runs. Enter day names, such as Monday or integers 0-6, where 0 represents Sunday. This parameter is required in the Weekly parameter set.

Day names are converted to their integer values in the job trigger. When you enclose day names in quotation marks in a command, enclose each day name in separate quotation marks, such as "Monday", "Tuesday". If you enclose multiple day names in a single quotation mark pair, the corresponding integer values are summed. For example, "Monday, Tuesday" (1 + 2) results in a value of Wednesday (3).

Type:DayOfWeek[]
Accepted values:Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-Once

Specifies a non-recurring (one time) or custom repeating schedule. To create a repeating schedule, use the Once parameter with the RepetitionDuration and RepetitionInterval parameters.

Type:SwitchParameter
Position:0
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-RandomDelay

Enables a random delay that begins at the scheduled start time, and sets the maximum delay value. The length of the delay is set pseudo-randomly for each start and varies from no delay to the time specified by the value of this parameter. The default value, zero (00:00:00), disables the random delay.

Enter a timespan object, such as one returned by the New-TimeSpan cmdlet, or enter a value in <hours>:<minutes>:<seconds> format, which is automatically converted to a TimeSpan object.

Type:TimeSpan
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-RepeatIndefinitely

This parameter, available starting in Windows PowerShell 4.0, eliminates the necessity of specifying a TimeSpan.MaxValue value for the RepetitionDuration parameter to run a scheduled job repeatedly, for an indefinite period.

Type:SwitchParameter
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-RepetitionDuration

Repeats the job until the specified time expires. The repetition frequency is determined by the value of the RepetitionInterval parameter. For example, if the value of RepetitionInterval is 5 minutes and the value of RepetitionDuration is 2 hours, the job is triggered every five minutes for two hours.

Enter a timespan object, such as one that the New-TimeSpan cmdlet returns or a string that can be converted to a timespan object, such as 1:05:30.

To run a job indefinitely, add the RepeatIndefinitely parameter instead.

To stop a job before the job trigger repetition duration expires, use the Set-JobTrigger cmdlet to set the RepetitionDuration value to zero (0).

This parameter is valid only when the Once, At, and RepetitionInterval parameters are used in the command.

Type:TimeSpan
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-RepetitionInterval

Repeats the job at the specified time interval. For example, if the value of this parameter is 2 hours, the job is triggered every two hours. The default value, 0, does not repeat the job.

Enter a timespan object, such as one that the New-TimeSpan cmdlet returns or a string that can be converted to a timespan object, such as 1:05:30.

This parameter is valid only when the Once, At, and RepetitionDuration parameters are used in the command.

Type:TimeSpan
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-User

Specifies the users who trigger an AtLogon start of a scheduled job. Enter the name of a user in <UserName> or <Domain\Username> format or enter an asterisk (*) to represent all users. The default value is all users.

Type:String
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-Weekly

Specifies a recurring weekly job schedule. Use the other parameters in the Weekly parameter set to specify the schedule details.

Type:SwitchParameter
Position:0
Default value:None
Required:True
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

-WeeksInterval

Specifies the number of weeks between occurrences on a weekly job schedule. For example, a value of 3 starts the scheduled job on weeks 1, 4, 7 and so on. The default value is 1.

Type:Int32
Position:Named
Default value:None
Required:False
Accept pipeline input:False
Accept wildcard characters:False

Inputs

None

You can't pipe objects to this cmdlet.

Outputs

Microsoft.PowerShell.ScheduledJob.ScheduledJobTrigger

This cmdlet returns a ScheduledJobTrigger object representing the created trigger.

Notes

  • Job triggers are not saved to disk. However, scheduled jobs are saved to disk, and you can use the Get-JobTrigger to get the job trigger of any scheduled job.

  • New-JobTrigger does not prevent you from creating a job trigger that will not run a scheduled job, such as one-time trigger for a date in the past.

  • The Register-ScheduledJob cmdlet accepts a ScheduledJobTrigger object, such as one returned by the New-JobTrigger or Get-JobTrigger cmdlets, or a hash table with trigger values.

    To submit a hash table, use the following keys.

    • Frequency: Once, Daily, Weekly, AtStartup, or AtLogon
    • At: any valid time string, such as 3am
    • DaysOfWeek: any combination of day names as strings, such as "Monday", "Wednesday"
    • Interval: any valid frequency interval as an integer
    • RandomDelay: any valid timespan string, such as 30minutes
    • User: any valid user, such as Domain1\User01; used only with the AtLogon frequency value