Cadences and intervals
Outpost supports five frequency buttons in the Schedule step of the wizard, plus a sub-day repeat dropdown. This page covers what each one means, when to use it, and the gotchas that come with each.
At a glance
| Frequency | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Single | Testing, ad-hoc exports, one-off requests |
| Daily | Most finance use cases. AR aging, AP runs, daily KPIs. |
| Weekly | Weekly reports, status decks, sales pipeline updates |
| Monthly | Month-end close exports, board reports, recurring filings |
| Yearly | Annual filings, year-end snapshots, anniversary reports |
Single
Runs the template once at a specific date and time. After the run completes, the template is finished and won't run again unless you edit it.
Use Single for testing a new Connection, exporting an ad-hoc result set for someone, or running a template once before converting it to a recurring schedule.
Single isn't the same as Run now. Run now executes a recurring template immediately on top of its normal schedule, useful for forcing a refresh without waiting for the next scheduled run. Single creates a template that exists only to run once.
Daily
Runs every day at a time you choose. The time is in the NetSuite account's time zone.
Daily is the most common cadence for finance exports. Schedule it for early morning so the file is ready before your team starts the day. Common patterns:
- 5:00 AM for files that need to be in BI tools by 7:00 AM
- 6:00 AM for files a controller will look at first thing
- 11:30 PM for end-of-day snapshots
Avoid scheduling daily runs during peak NetSuite hours (typically 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM in your account's time zone) where they'll compete with user activity for compute.
Weekly
Runs on a day-of-week and time you choose. Time is in the NetSuite account's time zone.
Weekly works well for reports that don't change much within a week. Sales pipeline snapshots, weekly P&L drafts, status decks. The most common pattern is Monday morning so the report is ready for the team's weekly meeting.
Weekly schedules don't skip holidays. If you schedule a weekly template for Monday and a Monday is a holiday, the template still runs. For holiday-aware schedules, see Business-day schedules.
Monthly
Runs on a day-of-month and time you choose. Two options for picking the day:
- By day-of-month. Pick a number from 1 to 31. The template runs on that calendar day every month. If you pick 31, the template runs on the 31st in months that have one, and on the last day of the month in months that don't (so February runs on the 28th or 29th, April on the 30th, etc.).
- By position. Pick a position (first, second, third, fourth, last) and a day-of-week (Monday through Sunday). For example, "last Friday of the month" is handled this way.
Monthly is the right cadence for month-end close exports, board reports, and anything tied to the calendar month rather than the working week.
Yearly
Runs on a specific month and day-of-month at a time you choose. Use Yearly for annual filings, year-end snapshots, and anniversary reports. For anything more frequent than once a year, use Monthly.
Sub-day runs: the Repeat dropdown
Outpost doesn't have an "Hourly" frequency. Instead, any non-Single schedule exposes a Repeat dropdown that re-runs the template at sub-day intervals on the days the schedule covers:
- No repeat (runs once on each scheduled day)
- Every 15 min
- Every 30 min
- Every 1 hour
- Every 2 hours
- Every 4 hours
- Every 6 hours
- Every 8 hours
- Every 12 hours
For an "hourly, every day" cadence, pick Daily + Every 1 hour. For "every 15 minutes on weekdays", pick Weekly (with Mon–Fri selected) + Every 15 min.
If none of these fit
Outpost intentionally doesn't expose custom cron syntax. If you have a use case the presets don't handle, contact us. The most common request becomes a preset in a future release.