Scheduling test runs

Test schedules require a qualifying plan. Check your plan or contact Sales to get started.

Tests can be scheduled to run on frequencies up to every minute. One or more schedules can be configured per test with each schedule using a unique test-specific or shared environment.

Configuring schedules

To set a schedule, follow these steps:

  1. Select one of your API tests and then select Schedules.

  2. Choose your Environment from the drop-down.

    Tip: Every schedule requires an environment and frequency. You can create up to 10 schedules per test (maximum recommendation)

  3. Click on a frequency under the Schedule column to open Scheduler. Configure the required Frequency and Start Time. See the next part for options and tips.

  4. Press Save.

Frequency options

Daily

The test will run in intervals ranging from every minute to once daily.

Weekly

The test will run each week on the days selected. If the checkbox Mon-Fri is marked, the test will run daily Monday through Friday. Multiple checkboxes can be selected.

Monthly

The test will run on a specific day of the month according to selection. Multiple days can be selected.

Advanced

This option lets you enter your own CRON expression. BlazeMeter default time zone is UTC+0. When using CRON as the frequency type, convert the defined time from your local time zone to UTC+0.

Explanation of the CRON representation:

# ┌───────────── minute (0 - 59)
# │ ┌───────────── hour (0 - 23)
# │ │ ┌───────────── day of the month (1 - 31)
# │ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1 - 12)
# │ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of the week (0 - 6) (Sunday to Saturday; 7 is also Sunday on some systems)
# │ │ │ │ │
# │ │ │ │ │
# * * * * * command to execute

Example: If we use 30 10 * 2 1, the test will run at 10:30AM UTC+0, on each Monday of February.

Once you enter a crontab expression, the scheduler will automatically validate your expression, then repeat the expression in plain terms to verify that your expression has created the result you intended.

Take care not to accidentally set the interval too small. Use the scheduler validation below your expression to verify your schedule. For example, you would not want to schedule a test to run every second, or every five minutes.

Any selection made under one option carries over to the next during setup. For example, if you select Weekly, then select Mon, at 2:00am, then switch from Weekly to Advanced, the crontab expression will automatically populate with your previous selection, expressed as:

0 2 * * 1

Start Time

For Daily, Weekly and Monthly options, you can configure the start time of the test. Click the time box next to the frequency bar. Note that BlazeMeter default time zone is UTC+0.

The scheduled test runs will begin immediately after saving your changes. For example, if you choose "Every 15 minutes" and save your changes, a test run will begin immediately and then the scheduled test runs will occur every 15 minutes afterwards.

Schedules only affect the scheduled tests BlazeMeter API Monitoring runs on your behalf. You may initiate as many test runs as you like (up to your plan's request limit) via Trigger URLs or manually in the dashboard.

For custom schedules (for instance, at a specific time), use your preferred scheduler (like cron) along with a Trigger URL.

Pausing scheduled tests (creating a maintenance window)

You can pause all scheduled test runs temporarily, without modifying or deleting their scheduling logic. This is especially useful for planned maintenance windows, infrastructure changes, or avoiding false alerts during known downtime.

To pause all scheduled tests in your bucket, navigate to Bucket Settings from the dashboard and scroll to Pause Scheduled Tests, then enable or disable the pause toggle.

To pause scheduled tests in selected shared environments only, navigate to Shared Environments. Under your chosen environment settings, select Behaviors and enable or disable the Pause Schedules option.

During a pause, the following behaviors apply:

  • Scheduled tests will be skipped while the pause is active.

  • The underlying schedule is not altered. After unpausing, tests will resume as normal, starting from the next scheduled run.

  • No backlogged or missed tests will be rerun after unpausing.

  • On your Tests list, all paused tests will display a paused indicator, showing that scheduled runs are temporarily disabled.

    The indicator shows whether a test is paused from the bucket () level or the shared environments () level, as shown next:

  • The Schedules tab will also reflect the paused state to help clarify test inactivity.

Other automation options

To run your BlazeMeter API tests on every commit or deploy, check out Trigger URLs and CI integrations.