Opening a file, folder or website on a timetable

Not every scheduled job has to do work. Some of the most useful ones simply put something in front of you at the right moment, and Schedule by Zaweba has a job type for exactly that: Open a file, folder or website. At the time you choose, it opens the thing you named, the same way it would open if you double-clicked it.

The obvious example is a report. If a spreadsheet of yesterday's figures is waiting in a shared folder, a job can open it each morning so it is on screen when you sit down. The same idea works for a folder you check every Friday, a timesheet you fill in at the end of the month, or a web page you read before the day starts.

What it suits, and what it does not

An Open job is for things you want to look at. It hands the file, folder or address to Windows to open with whatever normally opens it, and that is the end of its work.

That makes it the wrong choice for programs whose output you want to keep. If you need to know whether something succeeded, what it printed or what exit code it returned, use a program job or a script job. Those can wait for the program to finish, record its exit code and, for scripts, capture its output and errors in the history.

A good test is to ask what you would do if it went wrong. If the answer is notice when you look at the screen, an Open job is fine. If the answer is find out tomorrow and wish you had known, use a job that records results.

Ideas that work well

A weekly reminder that is also the tool: open the timesheet itself every Friday afternoon rather than a reminder to open it.

A shared folder at the start of the day, so new files from a colleague are the first thing you see.

A dashboard or status page in your browser each morning, in place of a bookmark you forget to click.

A checklist document before a monthly job, timed with a plain-English timetable such as last Friday of the month or first working day of the month.

Timing it to your day

Because the job is for you to see, it should run when you are there. Schedule's timetables are written in plain English, so every weekday at 8:30 is exactly what you type, and a preview shows the next 10 run times before you save.

Conditions help too. A job can be held back while a full-screen program is in front, so a report does not pop up in the middle of a presentation; the run is skipped and the history says why. If you use UK bank holidays on the job, it can skip those days for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, and working day in a timetable follows the same calendar.

Triggers are another option. Instead of a time, an Open job can start at login, so the morning folder appears as soon as you sign in, whatever time that is.

Things to watch for

Schedule runs as you, from the notification area, so jobs run while you are signed in to Windows. An Open job set for a time when you are signed out will not show you anything. If the PC is often off at that time, catch-up can run a missed job once as soon as Schedule is running again.

Check paths. A file on a network drive that is not connected yet, or a folder that has been renamed, will not open. Use Run now once after setting the job up to make sure it does what you expect.

Do not stack too many. Five windows opening at 9:00 is clutter, not help. One or two well-chosen Open jobs earn their place.

A small job with a real effect

Opening a file sounds trivial, but a habit that depends on remembering often fails, and a habit that arrives on screen by itself rarely does. Schedule by Zaweba makes the second kind easy to set up.