How to configure a cron job in WordPress?

17 November 2021

A cron job is used to schedule tasks at periodic fixed times, dates, or intervals. It generally involves repetitive tasks that are automated to save time.

Wordpress has its own built-in cron jobs that allows it to perform scheduled tasks such as publishing schedule posts, checking for updates, etc.

In this blog, we will see how to configure a custom cron job in WordPress.

Configure a custom cron job

First we need to install and activate the WP Crontrol plugin.

Once activated, Go to Tools » Cron Events page to control cron settings.

Once visited, we can see a list of all cron events scheduled to run on our site.

Next, let’s see how to set up a custom cron job through this plugin.

Click on Add New to create a new cron job. Once clicked, we will get to see the following screen

We need to provide a hook name for our cron event.

Next, if the function we want to execute requires arguments, then we can provide those arguments.

Next, enter when the cron should run next time. Lastly, we need to select a schedule. We can select hourly, daily, or once a week. We can also make it a non-repeating event.

Lastly, hit the Add Cron Event button to save your changes.

Our cron event will now appear in the events list which has all events listed.

But WordPress currently is not aware of what to do when this event is triggered. For that we need to add our hook and a function in functions.php file that runs when the cron hook is triggered.

add_action( ‘custom_cron’, ‘custom_cron_functtion’ );

function custom_cron_function() {
//code to execute the task
}

Lastly, Hit ‘Run Now’ link next to your cron event from the page where we can see a list of cron jobs to test it out.