Schedules

A schedule is a named, reusable cadence: a cron expression and a timezone bound to a human-readable name. Once created, a schedule can be attached to any recurring operation — backup config, sync apply, or run commands — so the work runs automatically without manual intervention.

The key idea is that the cadence is defined once and referenced by name everywhere it’s used. If you decide to shift your nightly window from 02:00 to 03:00, you update the schedule in one place and every operation that references it picks up the change.

Creating a schedule

ndcli schedule create --name nightly-maintenance --cron "0 3 * * *" --timezone America/New_York

Flags

Flag	Required	Description
`--name`	Yes	Unique name within the organization
`--cron`	Yes	Standard 5-field cron expression
`--timezone`	Yes	IANA timezone name (e.g., `America/New_York`, `Europe/Berlin`, `UTC`)

The cron expression uses the standard 5-field format: minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week. A few examples:

Expression	Meaning
`0 2 * * *`	Every day at 02:00
`0 4 * * 1`	Every Monday at 04:00
`0 0 1 * *`	First day of every month at midnight
`0 3 * * 0,6`	Every Saturday and Sunday at 03:00

In NDWeb, the Schedules page has a form with the same fields and a live cron-expression preview so you can verify the schedule before saving.

Listing and inspecting schedules

ndcli schedule list

╭──────────────────────┬────────────────┬──────────────────┬─────────╮
│ Name                 │ Cron           │ Timezone         │ Enabled │
├──────────────────────┼────────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────┤
│ nightly-maintenance  │ 0 3 * * *      │ America/New_York │ Yes     │
│ monday-reboot        │ 0 4 * * 1      │ America/Chicago  │ Yes     │
│ monthly-audit        │ 0 0 1 * *      │ UTC              │ No      │
╰──────────────────────┴────────────────┴──────────────────┴─────────╯

ndcli schedule describe nightly-maintenance

Enabling and disabling schedules

Disabling a schedule pauses all recurring tasks that reference it — nothing runs until you re-enable it. This is useful for maintenance periods or when you want to temporarily stop automation without deleting the configuration.

ndcli schedule disable nightly-maintenance
ndcli schedule enable nightly-maintenance

In NDWeb, use the toggle on each schedule row.

Deleting a schedule

ndcli schedule delete nightly-maintenance

A schedule can only be deleted if no recurring tasks reference it. Remove or reassign those tasks first (see Scheduled Tasks).

Attaching a schedule to an operation

Schedules become useful when attached to commands. Pass --schedule <name> in place of (or in addition to) --at:

Backup

ndcli backup config set --schedule nightly-maintenance

The backup will run according to the schedule’s cron expression. See Backups for the full backup setup.

Sync

ndcli sync apply --ou branch-offices --schedule nightly-maintenance

This creates a recurring sync task. Every time the schedule fires, the filtered set of devices receives a sync. See Sync & Delivery for targeting options.

Run commands

ndcli run restart --ou staging --schedule monday-reboot
ndcli run plugin-install --version 2.1.0 --org --schedule monthly-audit

Any ndcli run subcommand accepts --schedule. The operation runs against the target set defined at creation time — if you add devices to an OU after creating the recurring task, they are not automatically included. See Run Command for targeting details.

Reference

Command	Description
`ndcli schedule create`	Create a new schedule
`ndcli schedule list`	List all schedules in the organization
`ndcli schedule describe <name>`	Show details for a single schedule
`ndcli schedule enable <name>`	Enable a schedule
`ndcli schedule disable <name>`	Disable a schedule (pauses all attached recurring tasks)
`ndcli schedule delete <name>`	Delete a schedule (must have no attached tasks)

See also Scheduled Tasks for managing the recurring operations that use a schedule.