> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.prodexlabs.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Scheduled Jobs

> Run Dexter tasks on a recurring or one-off schedule — recurring reports, data refreshes, and simulation runs without manual intervention.

## Overview

<Warning>
  **Scheduled Jobs are not currently available.** The feature is turned off across the platform while it's being reworked. What follows describes how it's designed to behave when it returns — you can't create or run scheduled jobs today.
</Warning>

Scheduled Jobs run [Dexter](/product/ai-assistant) prompts on a recurring or one-off schedule, starting a fresh conversation each time they fire. Use them to automate recurring factory checks, [report](/product/dexter/reports) generation, simulation runs, and data refreshes without anyone having to remember to ask.

Jobs are created and managed in conversation with Dexter: describe what you want automated and when, and Dexter sets up the job for you.

## Creating a Scheduled Job

Tell Dexter what to automate and when, in plain language. Dexter translates the cadence into a schedule, confirms the interpretation with you, then creates the job:

* *"Every weekday at 5am, run the simulation and generate a PDF of the results"*
* *"Every Monday morning, refresh the production data"*
* *"Run a Monte Carlo batch on the first of every month"*
* *"In 2 hours, generate the quarterly throughput report"*

| You say                                | Dexter interprets                             |
| -------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| "Every day at 5am"                     | Daily, 5:00 AM                                |
| "Every weekday at 5am"                 | Monday through Friday, 5:00 AM                |
| "Every Monday at 8:30"                 | Monday, 8:30 AM                               |
| "The first of every month at midnight" | 1st of each month, 12:00 AM                   |
| "Every 6 hours"                        | Every 6 hours                                 |
| "In 2 hours"                           | One-off job, fires once at the scheduled time |

Schedules run in your timezone unless you name a different one. Dexter confirms the interpreted schedule before creating the job, so you can correct any misreading.

### Recurring vs. One-Off

* **Recurring** — runs on a cron cadence (daily, weekly, monthly, custom intervals) until you pause or delete it.
* **One-off** — fires once at a specific future time: *"On April 1st at 8am, run the quarterly analysis."*

<Tip>
  For complex procedures, create a [custom workflow](/product/dexter/custom-workflows) first and have the job reference it: *"Run the weekly quality audit workflow every Monday at 6am."* The job prompt stays clean, and the procedure keeps improving through the workflow's own reflection loop.
</Tip>

## How Scheduled Jobs Run

When a job fires:

1. Dexter opens a **new conversation** with the job's prompt as the first message.
2. Dexter executes the instructions autonomously — running simulations, generating reports, refreshing data, anything it can do interactively.
3. Outputs are saved exactly as if you'd asked in person: reports land in the **Reports** tab of the [Data page](/product/data-overview), model changes take effect in the factory.
4. The conversation is saved to your **conversation history**, named for the job.

<Info>
  Scheduled runs are ordinary Dexter conversations. Open one from your history to audit exactly what happened — every step, tool call, and output — and follow up in that conversation if something needs attention.
</Info>

## Managing Jobs

Ask Dexter to list, inspect, or change your scheduled jobs at any time:

* **Edit** — change a job's schedule or prompt: *"Move the daily report to 6am."*
* **Pause** — stop the job from firing while keeping its schedule and run history: *"Pause the daily report job while the line is down."*
* **Resume** — pick the schedule back up. The next run is computed from now; firings missed while paused are skipped, not backfilled.
* **Run now** — trigger a job immediately without waiting for its next scheduled slot.
* **Delete** — remove the job permanently, along with its run records.

## Limitations

* **One factory per job.** Each job is bound to the factory it was created in. To automate work across factories, create a job in each.
* **No interactive input.** Scheduled runs are autonomous — write prompts that carry all the context Dexter needs, because nobody is there to answer clarifying questions mid-run.

## Best Practices

* **Keep prompts specific.** *"Generate a PDF report on last week's throughput for the CNC line, including utilization and cycle-time KPIs"* beats *"send me an update."*
* **Name the artifacts.** Reference specific models, data sources, and naming conventions in the prompt.
* **Lean on the [knowledge base](/product/dexter/memories).** The more context Dexter has about your operation, the closer unattended runs land to what you'd have asked for.
* **Review the first runs.** Check the first one or two conversations a new job produces and tune the prompt if anything's off.

<Warning>
  **Scheduled jobs execute with your permissions.** Anything Dexter does during a scheduled run has the same effect as if you'd asked interactively — changes to models, BOMs, or configurations take effect immediately.
</Warning>