This topic describes how to configure scheduling time for nodes in a workflow in different scenarios.
Scenarios
You can configure the scheduling time only for the start node in a workflow or separately for each node in a workflow based on your business requirements.
If you want the start node in a workflow to start to run at a specific point in time and the other nodes in the workflow to run after their ancestor nodes finish running, you can configure the scheduling time only for the start node in the workflow. When the scheduling time arrives, nodes in the workflow start to run in sequence based on scheduling dependencies.
If you want specific nodes in a workflow to start to run at different points in time, you must separately configure the scheduling time for the nodes.
Sample scenarios
In the workflows shown in the following figures, Node A is the start node, Node B depends on Node A, and Node C depends on Node B.
Scenario in which the workflow starts to run at 03:00
If you manually set the scheduling time of Node A to 03:00 and use the default scheduling time for Node B and Node C, the workflow starts to run at 03:00, and the nodes in the workflow start to run in sequence based on scheduling dependencies.
Scenario in which nodes in the workflow are expected to run at different points in time
If all nodes in the workflow are manually triggered, the nodes start to run separately based on their configured scheduling time.
Impact of the scheduling time of an ancestor node on the actual running time of its descendant node
The actual time at which Node C starts to run is later than 05:00.
If you want the workflow to start to run at 03:00, you need to only set the scheduling time of Node A to 03:00. Although the default scheduling time of the descendant node of Node A is 00:00, the descendant node can start to run only after Node A finishes running.
If you want Node A to run at 03:00, Node B to run at 05:00, and Node C to run at 06:00, you must separately configure the scheduling time for the nodes.