Skip to content

Develop a Scheduled Task

Choreo is a versatile integration platform that allows you to create various types of integrations depending on your requirements. If you need to automatically run a specific integration at regular intervals, you can use Choreo to develop a scheduled task. This type of integration can automate the synchronization of data between different systems at specified intervals, reducing errors and improving productivity by eliminating the need for manual intervention.

This guide walks you through the steps to develop, deploy, test, and observe a scheduled task using Choreo.

In this guide, you will:

  • Develop a scheduled task to fetch the weather forecast for a specified location for the next 24 hours from the OpenWeatherMap API.
  • Process the weather data into a specific format.
  • Send the formatted data to a specified email address at a specific time every day.

Prerequisites

  1. If you're signing in to the Choreo Console for the first time, create an organization:

    1. Go to https://console.choreo.dev/ and sign in using your preferred method.
    2. Enter a unique organization name. For example, Stark Industries.
    3. Read and accept the privacy policy and terms of use.
    4. Click Create.

    This creates the organization and opens the Project Home page of the default project created for you.

  2. Fork the Choreo samples repository, which contains the sample integration for this guide.

    Repository File Structure

    The sample code for this guide is in the <sample-repository-dir>/weather-to-email-scheduled-task directory. The following table describes the key files in the repository:

    File Path File Content
    Ballerina.toml Contains metadata about the project
    Dependencies.toml Lists the dependencies required for the project
    main.bal Contains the entry point of the project, including the main function
    types.bal Contains custom data types used in the project
    utils.bal Contains utility functions and helper functions used in the project

  3. Go to OpenWeatherMap and sign up to obtain an API key. For details, see the OpenWeatherMap documentation.

Step 1: Create a scheduled task component

  1. Go to https://console.choreo.dev/ and sign in. This opens the project home page.
  2. If you already have one or more components in your project, click + Create. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.
  3. Click the Scheduled Task card.

  4. Enter a unique name and description for the component. You can use the following values:

    Field Value
    Component Name WeatherToEmail
    Description My first scheduled task

  5. Go to the GitHub tab.

  6. Click Authorize with GitHub to connect Choreo to your GitHub account. If you haven't connected your GitHub repository to Choreo, enter your credentials and select the repository you forked earlier to install the Choreo GitHub App.

    Alternatively, paste the Choreo samples repository URL in the Provide Repository URL field. However, enabling Auto Deploy requires authorizing the repository with the Choreo GitHub App.

    Note

    The Choreo GitHub App requires: - Read and write access to code and pull requests. - Read access to issues and metadata.

    You can revoke access at any time. Write access is only used for sending pull requests; Choreo will not push changes directly to your repository.

  7. Enter the following information:

    Field Description
    Organization Your GitHub account
    Repository choreo-samples
    Branch main
    Buildpack Ballerina
    Project Directory weather-to-email-scheduled-task

    Tip

    • Buildpack specifies the type of build to run depending on the implementation of the component. It converts the integration code into a Docker image that can run on Choreo cloud. If an integration is developed using WSO2 Integration Studio, select Micro Integrator as the buildpack. If an integration is developed using the Ballerina language, select Ballerina as the buildpack.
    • Project Directory specifies the location of the project to build the component.

  8. Click Create. Choreo initializes the component with the sample implementation and opens the Overview page of the component.

Now you can proceed to build and deploy the scheduled task.

Step 2: Build the scheduled task

  1. In the left navigation menu, click Build.
  2. In the Builds pane, click Build. This opens the Commits pane, where you can see all the commits related to the component.

  3. Select the latest commit and click Build. This triggers the build process and displays the build progress in the Build Logs pane.

    Info

    The build process may take some time. Once complete, the build status will be listed in the Builds pane. Here, you will see the build status as Success.

Step 3: Deploy the scheduled task

  1. In the left navigation menu, click Deploy.
  2. In the Set Up card, click Configure & Deploy.

  3. In the Configurations pane, specify values for the configurable variables:

    Tip

    The configurable variables populated here are defined in the sample Ballerina project used in this guide. To learn how to declare configurable variables in Ballerina, see the Ballerina documentation on declaring configurable variables.

    Field Value
    apiKey The API key you obtained in the prerequisites section
    latitude Latitude of the location to get the weather forecast
    longitude Longitude of the location to get the weather forecast
    email The email address to receive the formatted weather forecast information

    Note

    If you use Ballerina as the buildpack and want to set a configurable variable as a secret, click the lock icon corresponding to the configurable variable. This marks it as a secret and conceals the input value.

    For example, if you set the apiKey as a secret, its input value will be concealed. To update the input value later, click Update Secret Content and specify a new value.

  4. Click Next.

  5. Define a schedule to run the task. In this guide, set the schedule to receive the weather information daily at 8:00 AM UTC. Enter the following values:

    Field Value
    Select Time Zone Select a time zone to schedule the task
    Select Range Day
    Every 1
    At 08:00

    Tip

    To test and verify the task immediately, you can schedule the deployment to run in just a few minutes after you create it. However, to avoid unnecessary expenses, reschedule or stop the deployment once you test and verify.

  6. Click Deploy. This deploys the scheduled task to the development environment and indicates the Scheduled Status as Active in the Development card.

You can test the scheduled task when it runs at the configured time.

Step 4: Test the scheduled task

When the scheduled task runs at the configured time, an email with the subject [WSO2 Choreo Demo] Next 24H Weather Forecast is sent from choreo.demo@gmail.com to the email address specified as the email configurable variable value in Step 3.

If the scheduled task ran successfully, you should receive an email similar to the following:

Received email

Step 5: Observe the scheduled task

The observability view in Choreo displays graphs that depict details such as throughput, latency, diagnostic data, and logs to identify and troubleshoot anomalies in components you deploy.

  1. In the left navigation menu, click Observability.
  2. Observe the following:
    • The throughput and latencies of requests served over a given period.
    • The logs generated over a given period.
    • The flame graph (Diagnostics View) generated over a given period.
    • The low-code diagram.

To learn more about the observability details you can view via Choreo observability, see Observability Overview.

Step 6: Monitor executions

To track and monitor executions associated with the deployed scheduled task, go to the left navigation menu and click Execute.

Tip

The Execute view is applicable to both scheduled and manual tasks.

You can view the following information:

  • Total executions: The total number of executions within the past 30 days.

    Total Execution

  • Execution history: The currently active executions and those that are already complete. You can view information such as the execution ID, the revision of the execution, and the time it was triggered.

    Execution History

  • Detailed execution logs: Click on an execution to view detailed logs related to it.

    Info

    It may take a few minutes for the logs to appear. You may need to manually refresh to view the latest logs.

    Execution Logs