My wife and I are co-founders and creators of PIFster, the Pay It Forward charity, where users donate as little as $1 dollar per month, then suggest and vote on causes that are important to them, and the cause that gets the most votes each month receives the community donation. We currently use a proprietary mobile app and a web app to accomplish this, but it’s becoming prohibitively expensive for a small charity like ours, so I’m slowly moving towards implementing core functionality on our website using Bit Apps (Forms and Flows, specifically).
One of the things we need to do is pre-stage 4 charities for the upcoming month (we’re using ACF for custom post types and taxonomies), and on midnight of the last night, we need to move the staged-charities into the current-charities page, and the charity with the most votes needs to be promoted to the past-winners page, with the other three being moved to archived-charities. Before I spend hard earned cash on the Bit Flows app, do you think the scheduling features are robust enough to handle this type of scenario?
Hi @conleec, thanks for your detailed explanation. While Bit Flow currently doesn’t offer a scheduling feature, we’re planning to integrate one. It will be available as soon as the feature is added.
Thank you for the response, @Arif Do you have any idea at all when that might be available? I’m assuming not before the lifetime deal expires? Also, do you offer a discount for nonprofits, by any chance?
@conleec I’m sorry, but I don’t have an estimated timeline for the scheduling feature. As a developer, I can assure you it will be implemented. Regarding the LTD offer, I’m not sure how long it will run. For details on discounts for non-profits, please contact our support team via chat or email.
As the developer, do you anticipate the scheduling feature to be robust enough to do the types of things I mentioned? Maybe thru assignment of custom taxonomies (staged, current, winners, archived) or something to that effect? Any better ideas? I’m pretty sure I’ll be pulling the trigger on Flows, so it’d be awesome if that sort of thing would be possible.
What you described is certainly possible with a Schedule trigger and some conditions.
I’d imagine to be relevant/competitive, Bit Flows would add scheduling trigger for minutes/hour/day/week, like many other automation platforms. Many offer custom crons as well. Hopefully the team implements more triggers, so keep you eyes peeled @conleec
@conleec Your use case will be supported in future releases once the scheduling and pull taxonomies features are available. However, as a developer, I recommend using wp_hook or webhook-based solutions, they’re faster than scheduling and help reduce server processing time.
@conleec lets say, you have custom taxonomies in WordPress and need to trigger an action when they change, there are two primary approaches:
1. Using WordPress Hooks (wp_hooks)
WordPress provides built-in hooks that allow you to execute custom functions when specific events occur. Hooks can be action hooks (triggered at a particular event) or filter hooks (used to modify data).
For example, if you want to perform an action whenever a user’s role is changed, you can use the add_user_role action hook. This ensures that your function runs immediately when the role change happens.
Implementation Steps:
Bind your function to the relevant WordPress hook.
When the event occurs (e.g., taxonomy update), your function gets triggered automatically.
Optionally, you can introduce a delay if needed.
Example Use Case:
Using a tool like Bit Flows, you can set up a hook that listens for taxonomy updates and either triggers an event instantly or schedules it for later execution.
2. Using a Polling or Scheduling System
You can use a scheduler (Bit Flows will support it in the future) to check for changes periodically.
Implementation Steps:
Set up a Schedule/polling to run at regular intervals (e.g., every minute or hour).
Fetch the latest taxonomy data and compare it with the previous state.
If changes are detected, trigger the required action.
Example Use Case:
A scheduled task runs every hour to check for modified taxonomies. If changes are found, an email notification is sent or a custom action is performed.
Choosing the Right Approach
Use WordPress hooks if you want real-time execution when taxonomies are updated. This is the most efficient approach.
Use a polling system (cron job) if you don’t have a hook available or need to handle bulk updates at scheduled intervals.
