# Recurring tasks (https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/tasks/recurring)

Schedules that create tasks for you — setting the pattern, reading the preview, and pausing one.

Half of a hotel's work is the same work as yesterday: test the pool water, check the fire doors,
deep-clean the spa on Mondays. A **recurring task** is a schedule that creates those tasks for you,
already assigned, on the days you say.

They live under the **Recurring Tasks** tab on the Tasks page.

![Screenshot: tasks/recurring](https://docs.serviata.ru/screenshots/en/tasks/recurring.png)

1. How many schedules exist, and the button that adds one
2. One card per schedule: its pattern, when it last ran, when it runs next

## Reading a schedule [#reading-a-schedule]

Each card holds:

* The **title** of the task it creates, and a badge — **Active**, **Paused** or **Completed**.
* The **property** it belongs to, or **Workspace**.
* The pattern **in words**: "Every week on Mon at 07:30". This is the line to check when something
  is arriving at the wrong time.
* **Next** and **Last** — when it will fire, and when it last did, on the schedule's own clock. A
  paused schedule has no next run.
* **From template: Arrival prep**, when the schedule was started from a
  [task template](https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/tasks/templates/). If that template has since been deleted the line reads **Removed
  template** — the schedule itself is unaffected and keeps running.

Clicking a card opens the schedule in full: every field it will put on the task, the pattern in
words, the next and last run, its files, and the same **Edit**, **Pause**, **Resume** and **Delete**
buttons. It's a read-through, not a form — nothing changes until you press **Edit**.

## Creating one [#creating-one]

**New Recurring Task** opens a form in two halves: what the task should say, and when it should
appear.

### Starting from a template [#starting-from-a-template]

The first control of the form is a [task template](https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/tasks/templates/) picker. Pick one and the whole
first half fills itself in — title, assignees, priority, tags, locations, checklist and files — and
you're left with the pattern to set. **Clear template** empties that half again and leaves the
pattern alone.

The schedule remembers which template it came from and shows it on the card, but nothing is linked
after that: editing the template later leaves every existing schedule exactly as it was. Change the
title in this form and the schedule is created without the link at all; a note under the field says
so.

### What the task says [#what-the-task-says]

**Property**, **Title**, **Assignees**, **Watcher**, **Description**, **Priority**, **Tags**,
**Locations** and **Apply checklist** — the same fields as a normal task, filled in once. Every task the schedule
creates comes out with them already set, which is the real saving: the checklist is attached and
the right shift is assigned before anyone touches it.

**Locations** pins the schedule to a place — the pool terrace, a floor, a whole building — and
every task it creates arrives already attached to it. See
[Locations on tasks](https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/locations/in-tasks/).

**Attachments** are the standing paperwork: the chemical sheet, the test form, the photo of what
"finished" looks like. Files put on the schedule are copied onto **every task it creates**, so the
person doing the round has them without going looking. Adding or removing a file on the schedule
changes what future tasks get, and leaves the tasks it already made alone.

The property field takes **several properties at once**, and the form tells you what that means —
"3 recurring tasks will be created with identical settings". Each property gets its own schedule,
with assignees and tags narrowed to the people and labels that exist there. The same goes for
[groups](https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/settings/user-groups/): with one property you can pick the groups that belong to it
as well as the whole-workspace ones, and with several properties selected only the whole-workspace
groups are offered — no single group belongs to all of them.

### When it appears [#when-it-appears]

![Screenshot: tasks/recurring-form](https://docs.serviata.ru/screenshots/en/tasks/recurring-form.png)

1. Start from a template — the schedule takes its content from the template
2. Repeats, start date, the pattern, and the time of day

* **Repeats** — **Daily**, **Weekly**, **Monthly** or **Yearly**. Each one reveals what it needs:
  weekly asks for weekdays, monthly for a day of the month or a position ("the last Friday"), yearly
  for the months as well.
* **Repeats every** — the interval. Every 2 weeks, every 3 months.
* **Start date** — nothing is created before it.
* **Time** — the hour the task appears, with the workspace's time zone printed underneath it. To
  change the zone itself, go to [workspace settings](https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/settings/general/); a schedule is not the
  place to fix a wrong clock.
* **Ends** — **Never**, or **After** a number of **occurrences**. A schedule that has produced its
  last occurrence shows as **Completed**.

<Callout title="Read the preview before you save">
  Under the pattern sits a calendar with the matching days marked and, beneath it, the rule written
  out in words plus **the next three dates it will fire**. Recurrence rules are easy to get
  subtly wrong — "every second Monday" and "the second Monday of the month" are different schedules
  — and those three dates are how you catch it in ten seconds rather than in three weeks.
</Callout>

## The clock a schedule runs on [#the-clock-a-schedule-runs-on]

A schedule keeps the time zone it was created in. The **Time** field names that zone underneath it
while you fill the form, and the schedule runs on that clock from then on: a 07:30 round stays at
07:30 there, summer and winter alike.

Two things follow, and both catch people out:

* **Changing the workspace's time zone does not move schedules that already exist.** It decides the
  zone for the ones you create next — see [General](https://docs.serviata.ru/en/docs/settings/general/). To put an existing
  schedule on a different clock, recreate it.
* **Next** and **Last** on the card are read on the schedule's clock, while every other time in the
  app follows your own device. A schedule belonging to a hotel in another country therefore shows an
  hour the rest of your screen disagrees with. That hour is the one it will actually fire at.

If a schedule needs to run on a different clock from the one the form shows, change the workspace's
zone first and create the schedule afterwards.

## What the schedule produces [#what-the-schedule-produces]

At the appointed time the schedule creates an ordinary task: it appears in the list, it can be
edited, commented on and closed like any other, and the people assigned are told about it — their
activity feed says **Recurring task created**.

Editing the schedule afterwards changes future tasks only. Tasks that already exist are untouched,
which is what you want — yesterday's round is a record, not a draft.

## Pausing, resuming, deleting [#pausing-resuming-deleting]

Each card carries its own controls, for people whose access covers managing schedules:

| Button     | What it does                                                    |
| ---------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Edit**   | Changes the content or the pattern.                             |
| **Pause**  | Stops it creating tasks. Nothing is lost; **Next** empties out. |
| **Resume** | Starts it again.                                                |
| **Delete** | Removes the schedule.                                           |

**Pause** is for a wing closed for refurbishment, a pool drained for the season, a service suspended
for a month. Reach for it before **Delete** — deleting means rebuilding the pattern from scratch
when the work comes back.

Deleting says what will happen in plain words, and counts it: **Schedule stops. 34 tasks created by
this rule stay: 12 not started · 5 in progress · 17 done or cancelled.** A schedule that never ran
says so instead. You never lose the history of work that was actually done — and the count is worth
reading before you confirm, because "5 in progress" means five people are mid-job.
