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Distributed CRON

This is how you set a cron schedule in Java:

    WorkflowOptions workflowOptions =
        WorkflowOptions.newBuilder()
            .setWorkflowId(WORKFLOW_ID)
            .setTaskQueue(TASK_QUEUE)
            .setCronSchedule("* * * * *")
            .setWorkflowExecutionTimeout(Duration.ofMinutes(3))
            .setWorkflowRunTimeout(Duration.ofMinutes(1))
            .build();

    // Create the workflow client stub. It is used to start our workflow execution.
    GreetingWorkflow workflow = client.newWorkflowStub(GreetingWorkflow.class, workflowOptions);

Setting setCronSchedule turns the Workflow Execution into a Temporal Cron Job

You can check our Java samples for example code.

Java SDK workflowOptions source code: https://www.javadoc.io/doc/io.temporal/temporal-sdk/latest/io/temporal/client/WorkflowOptions.html

Retrieve last successful result​

Sometimes it is useful to obtain the progress of previous successful runs. This is supported by one new APIs in the Java SDK: GetLastCompletionResult. The method returns null if there is no previous completion. Below is an example of how to use this in Java:

public String cronWorkflow() {
    String lastProcessedFileName = Workflow.getLastCompletionResult(String.class);

    // Process work starting from the lastProcessedFileName.
    // Business logic implementation goes here.
    // Updates lastProcessedFileName to the new value.

    return lastProcessedFileName;
}

Note that this works even if one of the cron schedule runs failed. The next schedule will still get the last successful result if it ever successfully completed at least once. For example, for a daily cron Workflow, if the first day run succeeds and the second day fails, then the third day run will still get the result from first day's run using these APIs.