(Note: You can get this setup as part of your free installation. But if you insist on doing it yourself, keep reading 
There are two cron jobs (backend schedulers) that you need to setup.
1. dap-cron.php (mandatory – every 1 hour):
This is the main scheduler. This sends out broadcast emails, autresponder emails, bulk member imports, affiliate commissions processing, clean up, etc. This one is mandatory.
2. dap-emailorder.php (optional – every 10 minutes)
This is the email order processing cron, used ONLY for 1ShoppingCart. Skip setting this cron up if you’re using any of the other carts or payment processors.
Before You Start
(A) Before you can set up the cron jobs, you first need to figure out the “Path to PHP” on your web host. They usually have this somewhere in your web site control panel. If not, just ask them or read their wiki.
For eg., on Hostgator, it looks like this:
/usr/bin/php
(B) Next, visit the following url (replace YourSite.com with your actual domain name):
http://www.YourSite.com/dap/getpath.php
This will show something like this in your browser:
/home/path/to/yoursite.com/dap
This is your “local path” to your root folder.
Make a note of the two things above:
A) “Path to PHP” and
B) “Local Path”
You will be needing both below.
Setting up the Cron jobs
1. dap-cron.php:
This one is mandatory. Should be set up to run Once Every Hour. This hourly process is what sends out all the scheduled broadcast (bulk) emails and processes different types of “bulk actions” – like importing a large list of customers into DAP from an external system, for instance.
The full text to put in where it asks for the “Command to run” on your “Cron Jobs” screen in your control panel, is this:
/usr/bin/php<insert space>/home/path/to/yoursite.com/dap/dap-cron.php
2. dap-emailorder.php (required ONLY if you’re using 1ShoppingCart or any private label of 1SC – like our own 1SiteAutomation.com)
This cron job should be set up to run once every 10 minutes. This is the cron script that processes all of your orders from your customers through email. So, if you set this up to run once every 10 minutes, then every 10 minutes, it will log in to your billing email address (you can configure what this email id is within the admin control panel on the “Config” screen) and process the email notifications that you have received from 1ShoppingCart (and its private labels).
Running it sooner than once every 10 minutes – like say, once every minute or even once every 5 minutes is resource intensive. Your web host may not not even allow it in the first place. But even if they do, it’s not recommended.
The full text to put in where it asks for the “Command to run” on your “Cron Jobs” screen in your control panel, is this:
/usr/bin/php<insert space>/home/path/to/yoursite.com/dap/dap-emailorder.php
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:
1. Where you see the text <insert space>, replace with an actual space (hitting the space bar).
2. Cron Email Reports:
Your webhost control panel allows you to set an email address where it can send the cron output. So login to your Webhost Control Panel > Cron Jobs page, and add your email address where you want the cron report sent. If you do not want to receive the cron report, you can just remove the email address, leave it blank, and save changes.
3. To check if you have set up the cron job correctly, you can set DAP Admin -> Setup -> Config -> Log Level to 5 . Then go to DAP Admin -> System -> Logs . Empty the logs by clicking on the “Empty Logs” link, and then revisit the screen and refresh the page, after say 10 minutes (to verify the running of dap-emailorder.php) or at the top of hour (to veryify the running of dap-cron.php).
4. To force run a cron (manually), click on this link:
http://YourSite.com/dap/dap-cron.php
(to run hourly cron)http://YourSite.com/dap/dap-emailorder.php
(to run the email order cron that runs every 10 minutes)
Replace YourSite.com with the actual domain name of your web site.
5. Disabling Cron Emails:
The cron job by default will send you an email every time it runs (feature of your web host, not that of DAP). If you wish to disable it, go to the Cron tab page and just remove your email address from that page (“Please enter an email address where the cron output will be sent”).
26 comments ↓
For those using Plesk servers, click on “Cron Jobs” from within your hosting account – then enter in:
0 for the minute
* for the hour
* for the day of the month
* for the month
* for the day of the week
Then the string above. So to set a cron up for every hour of every day, your cron job would look like this:
0**** /usr/local/php5/bin/php /var/www/vhosts/your-website.com/httpdocs/dap/dap-cron.php
[...] to you only if you are already using 1ShoppingCart with DAP (if not, skip to next step): Be sure to disable the “Email Order” cron job from your web hosting control panel (“Cron Jobs” screen), because you don’t want [...]
[...] to you only if you are already using 1ShoppingCart with DAP (if not, skip to next step): Be sure to remove the “Email Order” cron job from your web hosting control panel (“Cron Jobs” screen), because you don’t want [...]
Just to be on the safe side: If I have, say, 2 sites (WordPress) hosted by the same company (say, DreamHost), and I need DAP on both, and they are both integrated with the same shopping cart (say, 1SC), would the cron jobs interfere with each other? Is this a situation that has been tested and supported well?
Sergiu,
Not a problem at all. We ourselves are running multiple web sites: http://Techiiies.com , http://MyWebmasterInABox.com , http://DigitalAccessPass.com , http://S3MediaVault.com – just to name a few – all through the same 1Shoppingcart account (our private label is http://1SiteAutomation.com ). And we have hundreds of DAP users who have DAP installed on multiple sites all powered by same 1SC account. No problems.
Just don’t use the “exact” same product name on different sites, that’s all. Product name is the key. As long as the product names are unique, you can use DAP on unlimited sites all powered by the same shopping cart like 1SC.
DAP has been battle tested for about 16 months now on live web sites. You can rest assured about that.
- Ravi Jayagopal
Mark,
“Command to run” is the same as “Path to PHP” above.
You will need to find this out from your web host.
- Ravi Jayagopal
I’m on hostgator and in the Add new con job there is a “Common Settings” drop down. What should I do with that? Also there is a Minuite, Hour, Day, Month, Weekday that needs to be set. What goes there?
Can you setup both cron jobs even if you are using only PayPal but plan on using Clickbank later?
See this post:
http://www.digitalaccesspass.com/doc/all-about-dap-cron-job/
anyone using Host Gator… here is their “path to PHP”
/usr/bin/php
[...] Setting up Cron Jobs [...]
Hi Ravi,
Using godaddy.com for now. Setup cron job. Any way to test it and make sure its working?
Suppose I wait for it to run, then look at the log.
Can you let me know if you have any other experience with this on godaddy?
Thank you,
Russell
You can use the CSV format to broadcast email to 1 test user and see if the job made it to the System -> Job Queue with a status of NEW.
If the cron is setup correctly, it should run once every hour and you should see the job status change to COMPLETE.
I want to make sure I am right on the cron job.
/usr/local/php5/bin/phpis the right?
this is the error message I receive so I must have got it wrong. Can you help me? /bin/sh: /usr/local/php5/bin/php: No such file or directory
Yes, it looks right. I am assuming the path to PHP on your host is
/usr/local/php5/bin/php.>> Can you help me? /bin/sh: /usr/local/php5/bin/php: No such file or directory <<
Looks like the path to php on your host is NOT /usr/local/php5/bin/php.
Try this path – /usr/bin/php. See if that works.
[...] i) Setting up Cron [...]
If my hosting service supports cron jobs, but has no cPanel type interface, is there a command line procedure to set up cron jobs?
The hosting service is hub.org, and they use a more techy-style (bare-bones) interface, which is over my head, but I am learning how to do stuff with it.
I’m using hub.org because they work closely with Semiologic Pro, who provides the plug-in platform I use with WordPress.
Unless you think there is a better alternative to Semiologic Pro, I’m okay with learning how to use the interface at hub.org, unless you think I’m wasting a lot of time and brain power in doing so.
The owner at hub.org is extremely helpful, and just does most of the stuff people need set up himself. And he does it FAST!
Thanks,
DSL
Hi David,
Setting up the dap cron job takes just a few minutes if the host provides a good interface. Most webhosts have a good cpanel interface to setup cron. Infact setting up cron is included in the DAP free installation. But the free installation is only for hosts that provide easy-to-use CPanel interface to setup cron.
If your host requires a different method to setup cron, then you can consult them and maybe have them help you setup the cron command.
Our professional techie who sold us DAP set up the cron jobs with these addresses: /usr/lib/php /home/angusm/public_html/amacoachingschool.org/dap/dap-cron.php and:
/usr/local/lib/php /home/angusm/public_html/members/dap/dap-cron.php
but no broadcasts have ever worked on either site for a year (when we delete old ‘successful’ broadcasts in DAP control-panel, they are all still there and subscribers are not getting the mailings. the host is arvixe (apparently these sttingsw work in my technical guy’s hostgator account) so different settings needed for arvixe? Anyone know what they are and how to make DAP work in this configuration?
Thx Em x
Emma,
The path to php is incorrect.
Remove all the dap cron settings you have in the webhsot cpanel and instead use this cron command:
/usr/bin/php /home/angusm/public_html/amacoachingschool.org/dap/dap-cron.php
Set it up to run once every hour.
Hi there.
I’m looking to add a couple of elements to my membership site. I need a little direction and if anyone else has experience with this – your help is greatly appreciated too.
Scenario #1: Declined/Expired Credit Cards. Right now, I have no way to go through all the declined and expired credit cards. When you have a membership site of 10,000 people, there are too many to go through daily. So I need a way to display that information in the backoffice and get the customer to update his payment information.
—> Ideas: I was thinking there had to be a way to show a post/page if they weren’t a member or add them to a membership if they stopped.. and then remove them if they added again. Not sure.
Scenario #2: I’m leaving money on the table. With 10,000 members – is there a way to cross-sell and promote other items in the backoffice without showing them what they already bought?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks!
Jeff
Jeff,
Right now the declined/expired card cannot be updated directly in dap but we will add support for this in dap soon.
What payment gateway/processor do you use?
As far as promoting items without showing what they already bought is concerned, we will be updating dap shortcodes to allow you to do that (show content when a user does not have access to a given product(s) ) . It will be part of upcoming dap release (dap 4.3).
I’m using Authorize.net.
Thanks. We plan on integrating dap->authnet so all the updates can be manged within dap sometime this year.
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