Scheduled Import Trigger

[ocpxc02]

I am in the process of setting up a scheduled import (was planning on a recurring schedule) and noticed a couple of fields pertaining to triggers. I don't see reference to this in the online documentation. What can be accomplished with triggers and how are they used?

Thanks,
Paul

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

I don't think there is a scheduled task for imports as yet. There are work arounds using the provide.xml function and CRON, but that means you need an automatic way to send the file to the miva data director (protected).

[ocpxc02]

I've tested the scheduled imports and it seems to work fine (https://docs.miva.com/scheduled-tasks-imports), but I'm wondering what the trigger is and if that might be something I can use.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Oh, missed that one. Now I also understand the question (more coffee). The trigger is site traffic...meaning everytime someone visits your site the scheduler looks to see if anything needs to run. (At least that's what I understand.)

[ocpxc02]

The field requires a value of some sort.


Scheduled Import.png

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

if you mean the Trigger field, that should be optional. My understanding is that its for 'custom' or 'built-in' triggers...

[ocpxc02]

Yes, it is optional, but I'm wondering if I might be able to trigger the import instead of using a schedule. And, if so, how it is accomplished.

[alphabet]

Kent has a Taskmaster module which is awesome.

[kayakbabe]

I wish Matt Zimmerman or Brennan or Rick Wilson would chime in on what a trigger is. We are all wondering. And it is probably something like a keyword on a url or maybe a screen code?

I'll lay a bet on this... I bet it is a way to force the task to run immediately, say by using a specially crafted url. Am I right?

[Brennan]

The scheduled task triggers are currently for internal use only. At some point we may publish a list of available triggers and make it available externally.

But essentially there are certain actions which when they happen in Miva will cause the trigger to occur. This will in tern force the scheduled task to run.

For example if you look at the Pre-Calculate Discount Prices scheduled task you'll see it has a trigger of "precalcprices". This trigger occurs in Miva when you update a products price. This means when a product price gets updated, the trigger will force the scheduled task to run so you don't have to wait until its next scheduled time.

The trigger delay is mostly used for when doing bulk updates. Say for example you imported 1000 products with new prices, you don't want to run the scheduled task 1000 times. The delay allows Miva to wait until the import is completed then it will run the scheduled task once.