Syncs can be triggered and started in several different ways.

A sync's settings, your plan, a remote server's maximum allowed connections, and a remote system's maximum number of running syncs all affect when and how often a sync starts.

Any particular sync runs only one sync job at a time, regardless of its trigger settings. If a sync run is already in progress when the next sync run would start, the second sync run is skipped.

Automatic Interval (in minutes)

The Automatic Interval (in minutes) option starts a sync repeatedly, for example every 45 minutes or every 240 minutes.

The number you enter determines how many minutes apart each job starts. Your plan determines the minimum value you can enter.

Automatic Interval syncs start running immediately when they are saved or enabled, unless the sync is disabled or already running.

Schedule Interval

A Schedule Interval runs a sync daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. This suits a sync that does not need to run every day, such as a monthly archive push or a quarterly reconciliation pull.

A daily schedule needs no day, because it already runs every day. The others need at least one, and allow several. Day numbers count from the start of the interval, so the same number means different things:

Weekly days run 1 through 7, where day 1 is Sunday and day 7 is Saturday.
Monthly days are calendar dates, 1 through 31.
Quarterly days count from the first day of the quarter, so day 1 is January 1, April 1, July 1, and October 1.
Yearly days count from January 1 through day 365, or 366 for a leap year.

A sync that delivers to a partner twice a month is one sync on days 1 and 15, not two syncs with one date each.

A day that a period does not contain is skipped rather than moved to the nearest real date. A monthly sync on day 31 does not run in February, April, June, September, or November, and a yearly sync on day 366 runs only in leap years. An interval can instead run at the end of the period. No day numbers are needed and it runs once, on its last day.

By default a Schedule Interval sync runs at midnight UTC on each of its days. With one or more times of day and an optional time zone, the sync starts inside those windows instead, on every day in the schedule. For example, a Schedule Interval sync can run monthly on days 1 and 15 at 6 PM Eastern Time.

Custom Schedule

A Custom Schedule runs a sync on one or more days of the week at one or more times of day. Both the day(s) of the week and the time(s) of day are required.

For example, an after-business sync could run on all seven days of the week at 5:00 PM in your local time zone. A weekday business-hours sync could run Monday through Friday with a time range of 9:00-17:00 for hourly runs across the day.

A time zone and a Holiday Region are optional.

Saved Schedule

A Saved Schedule points the sync at a Schedule rather than giving it timing of its own. A Schedule holds the same days, times of day, time zone, and Holiday Region a Custom Schedule does, and it lives once on your site instead of once per sync.

Choosing a Saved Schedule replaces this sync's timing fields with a list of the Schedules on your site. Editing that Schedule later moves this sync and everything else pointed at it.

Use a Saved Schedule when a sync runs on the same timing as other syncs or Automations, such as an overnight window several partner feeds share. Use a Custom Schedule when the timing belongs to this sync alone.

Schedule Timing Options

The Schedule Interval and Custom Schedule triggers share a common set of timing options. Schedule Interval syncs accept these as optional refinements over their default midnight UTC behavior. Custom Schedule syncs require at least one time of day to decide when each run occurs.

A Time of day is an individual value like 06:00 or 14:00, or an hour range like 09:00-17:00. Each configured time defines an hour-long window in which the sync starts; the exact start moment within the window is not guaranteed. An hour range (like 09:00-17:00) extends this to one run per hour across the range, useful for spreading load across business hours or restricting activity to an off-peak interval.

An optional Time zone determines how each time-of-day value is used. Without a time zone, times are treated as UTC.

A Holiday Region prevents the sync from running on the days it covers. This avoids unattended sync activity on days when staff are not available to monitor for failures or downstream delivery problems.

The Holiday Region setting takes either a built-in region or a Holiday Calendar. Files.com's built-in regions carry the public holidays of a country or territory. A Holiday Calendar covers anything they do not, including dates that move each year, weekend observation, partial-day closures, and restrictions to specific years.

External Trigger

The External Trigger option allows your sync to be started by a Run Sync Automation.

When this option is chosen, the sync can only be triggered "as needed" rather than on a schedule.

This option is intended to be used in conjunction with an Automation. Create an Automation configured with the Run sync option to trigger this sync.

Combining a sync with an Automation this way allows you to trigger the sync via an incoming webhook by using the Incoming webhook trigger for the Automation.

Manual Start

You can manually start a Sync using its Run now option.

Run now does not start disabled Syncs and does not interrupt or restart a Sync that is currently running.

Dry Run

Using Dry run allows you to validate Sync configuration, review expected behavior, and identify potential issues before running a live Sync, helping reduce the risk of unintended file transfers and changes.

Dry run simulates the results of a Sync without performing any file transfer or modification actions.

When Dry run is used, the Sync Runs Log displays the projected changes that would occur during a normal sync, but Files.com does not make any changes to either side of the sync.

Save and Enable Triggers

Only Automatic Interval type Syncs start running when they are saved or enabled.

Sync Triggers