Scheduling Custom Django Management Commands

Last updated 13 May 2020

Running scheduled tasks that rely on data or code in your Django application is simple with custom django-admin commands and Heroku Scheduler.

Create a custom management command

Create the Python file

Custom Django management commands are nested within a Django project’s apps. For this tutorial, if the Django project contains more than one app, decide which app the custom management command will most closely relate to, and use that app to follow the steps below.

The Python file that contains the code for the custom command is nested inside several directories:

1. At the root level of the Django app, create a directory called management
2. Within management create a commands directory
3. Within commands create a file named something similar to print_book_titles.py. Stylistically, the name you choose for this file should reference the outcome of the task when it runs.

At this stage, the app’s file tree will look similar to this:

some_app/
    __init__.py
    models.py
    management/
        commands/
            print_book_titles.py
    tests.py
    views.py

Django automatically maps the name of the command file to the command that is run in the CLI (python manage.py print_book_titles)

Code the command’s logic

The following code snippet is for a short custom management command. View the Django documentation on Writing custom django-admin commands for guidance on more complex needs.

from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand, CommandError
from some_app.models import Book

class Command(BaseCommand):
    help = 'Prints all book titles in the database'

    def handle(self):
        try:
            books = Book.objects.all()
            for book in books:
                 self.stdout.write(self.style.SUCCESS(book.title))
        except FieldDoesNotExist:
            self.stdout.write(self.style.ERROR('Field "title" does not exist.'))
            return

        self.stdout.write(self.style.SUCCESS('Successfully printed all Book titles'))
        return

Verify the command works as expected

Ensure the command works by running it in a one-off dyno:

1. From the CLI, run heroku run bash -a your-app-name
2. Navigate to the directory containing manage.py
3. Run python manage.py <your_custom_command>

Setup Heroku Scheduler

Provision the Add-on

If the Heroku Scheduler Add-On is not already provisioned on the Heroku app, follow the steps in Heroku Scheduler - Installing the Add-On now.

Schedule the job

Open the Heroku Scheduler tool by following the steps in Heroku Scheduler - Scheduling Jobs. When prompted, enter python manage.py <your_custom_command> as the command to run.