Certain tasks, such as checking for updates and indexing, must execute periodically for your website to operate correctly, and should be scheduled in advance.

To ensure tasks execute on a regular schedule, Site Factory websites use cron (also called Poor man’s cron). Cron runs at a scheduled configured interval, and executes any management tasks provided by other website modules and features.

Setting a cron schedule

To configure how frequently cron runs on your website:

1. Go to Configuration > Cron.

2. In the Run cron every list, select the amount of time you want to elapse before cron runs again.

   Acquia recommends you select 1 day for your websites. Do not select Never for the cron run frequency unless you want to disable the cron job.

Certain tasks, such as checking for updates and indexing, must execute periodically for your website to operate correctly, and should be scheduled in advance.

To ensure tasks execute on a regular schedule, Site Factory websites use cron (also called Poor man’s cron). Cron runs at a scheduled configured interval, and executes any management tasks provided by other website modules and features.

Setting a cron schedule

To configure how frequently cron runs on your website:

1. Go to Configuration > Cron.

2. In the Run cron every list, select the amount of time you want to elapse before cron runs again.

   Acquia recommends you select 1 day for your websites. Do not select Never for the cron run frequency unless you want to disable the cron job.

3. Click Save configuration.

Running cron manually

To manually run cron immediately, regardless of its scheduled run time, select one of the following methods:

Cron configuration page

After signing in to your website as an administrator, to manually run cron:

1. Go to Configuration > Cron.

2. Click Run cron.

Cron URL

You can also run cron on your website by visiting a specific cron URL. Your website’s cron URL displays on the Cron configuration page at Configuration > Cron.

Visiting the URL with your unique cron key appended to the URL will run cron on your website, even if you are not signed in to the website.