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Cron jobs, backups and scheduled tasks

Your jobs run quietly.
Their failures shouldn’t.

A backup, sync or cron job can stop for days without an error reaching your team. Send a check-in after successful work and get notified when an expected signal is missing. Keep job signals alongside your vendor status and endpoint checks.

Explore how heartbeats work
Statusfield
Platform preview · example data

Monitors Inventory sync

Inventory sync

Heartbeat · Every 5 minutes · 1 minute grace

On schedule
Last check-in
12:00
Next expected
12:05
Grace ends
12:06

Heartbeat history

Illustrative time window
11:2111:4512:08
On scheduleIncidentNot yet observed

Latest activity

Successful check-in

12:00:00

Configured destinations

Microsoft TeamsEmail

Check-in received

The sync finished and sent its signal. The next window begins.

Give a late job some room.
Know when it runs out.

Set the expected interval, then allow a grace period for runs that take a little longer.

If a signal still hasn’t arrived, Statusfield evaluates the missed deadline and routes alerts using your configured rules.

Inventory syncExample
Runs every 5 minutes
Allow a delay
With 1 min of grace, we wait until 12:06.A check-in during the amber window is still on time. Without one, the next evaluation can open an incident.

Deadlines are evaluated every minute. Alerts follow your configured routing.

Let your job tell you it’s working.

Send a check-in after successful work, or report a failure when something goes wrong. If the next check-in is missing after the expected interval and grace period, Statusfield alerts your team through your configured channels.

Run a restic backup and check its exit code. Send a success ping only when the backup command succeeds. Configure your restic repository before using this example.

Nightly backupBash · restic
if restic backup /srv/data; then
  curl -fsS --max-time 10 \
    "https://ping.statusfield.com/$token"
else
  curl -fsS --max-time 10 \
    "https://ping.statusfield.com/$token/fail"
  exit 1
fi
Check in on successReport a job failure with /fail

Replace $token with your monitor’s token and keep the URL private. Adapt the commands, URLs and credentials to your setup. Run the JavaScript example as a Node.js module (.mjs). Your scheduler controls when these jobs run.

Explore alert routing

Frequently Asked Questions

Successful check-ins, missed jobs, failure alerts and access.

How can I find out when a cron job or backup stops running?
Use a heartbeat monitor. Set how often the job should finish and how much extra time to allow, then add its check-in URL after your job’s success checks. After the first check-in starts monitoring, a missed deadline can trigger your configured alerts. Send /fail to report a known failure without waiting for the deadline. Your code must verify the work: a received ping alone does not prove a usable backup or correct data.
Do I need vendor monitoring, uptime monitoring or a heartbeat?
Use vendor monitoring to follow incidents a third-party provider reports. Use uptime monitoring to check whether your own public HTTPS website or API returns the response you expect. Use a heartbeat to detect a cron job, backup or sync that stops checking in after successful work. You can combine them in one Statusfield workspace and route their alerts to the people responsible.
How can I tell if my monitoring process itself stops running?
Have your monitoring process send a heartbeat to Statusfield after it completes its checks. If the process stops, Statusfield can detect the missing check-in outside that process and alert through your configured destination. Use a destination that remains available when the monitored system fails. Detection still depends on Statusfield running and the alert channel delivering the message.
Why do you recommend Pro for engineering and IT teams?
Pro is our recommendation for small engineering and IT teams coordinating checks, on-call alerts and incident reviews. At $60/month, it combines 40 monitor units, 10 alert destinations and 4 workspace seats with PagerDuty routing, API and MCP access, reports and priority support. Share monitoring responsibility, send relevant changes to chat or on-call, and bring recorded history into your reviews. Reports require at least 30 days of workspace monitoring history. Basic covers a small email-only setup; Starter adds chat and API/MCP access. Team expands capacity to 90 units and 8 seats.
Who can use heartbeat monitoring?
Heartbeat monitoring is available with legacy Free plans, paid plans and eligible trials.
Can I monitor jobs on a private server?
Yes, if the job can send outbound HTTPS requests to its Statusfield check-in URL. You do not need to expose an inbound endpoint for a heartbeat. This watches the signals your job sends; it does not give Statusfield access to inspect the server, run the job or validate its output.
What counts as a successful job?
Your code decides when work has succeeded and sends a success signal at that point. A received ping confirms that the signal arrived; it does not inspect the output of your job.
What happens when a job runs late?
The grace period gives a job extra time to check in. For example, with a five-minute interval and a one-minute grace period, a check-in received at 12:00 is expected again at 12:05. If it is still missing after 12:06, Statusfield can detect the missed deadline and trigger your configured alerts. A successful check-in starts the next interval.
Why use /fail instead of waiting for a missed heartbeat?
A missing check-in could mean the job is taking longer than usual, so Statusfield waits until the expected interval and grace period have passed. Sending a check-in to https://ping.statusfield.com/$token/fail reports a known failure. When processed, it opens an incident and queues your configured alerts without waiting for that deadline. Delivery time depends on processing and your notification channel. Use the regular ping URL only after successful work.
Does a heartbeat use a monitor unit?
Each active heartbeat uses one shared monitor unit. Alert channels and destination limits depend on your plan.

Still have questions? Email us at support@statusfield.com or set up a meeting. All emails are read by humans.

Explore more monitoring

Keep the rest of your stack in view.

Bring your services, dependencies and renewals together. Choose what you want to watch next.

One monitor unit. Your existing alert channels.

Each active heartbeat uses one shared monitor unit. Channel limits depend on your plan.

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