@Marvin what’s options do I have to schedule the same deployment for three different time zones?

To schedule the same deployment for three different time zones, you can specify the

schedules

section in your deployment YAML file with different cron schedules and time zones. Here's an example:

yaml
deployments:
  ...
  schedules:
    - cron: "0 0 * * *"
      timezone: "America/Chicago"
      active: true
    - cron: "0 12 * * *"
      timezone: "America/New_York"
      active: true
    - cron: "0 18 * * *"
      timezone: "Europe/London"
      active: true

Each schedule will adhere to the timezone you specify, and this allows you to have the same deployment run at corresponding local times in each of the time zones. For more information on scheduling in different time zones, you can refer to the Prefect documentation on schedules.

@Marvin Can I have different parameters passed into the flow based on the time zone it was run for?

The documentation does not seem to provide a direct example of how to pass different parameters to a flow based on the timezone it was scheduled to run. However, you could potentially handle this within the flow itself by determining the current timezone at runtime and then using that information to conditionally set different parameters. Here's an abstract example of what you could do in your flow:

python
from datetime import datetime
import pytz

# Use a dict mapping timezones to parameters
timezone_params = {
    "America/Chicago": {'param1': 'value1'},
    "America/New_York": {'param2': 'value2'},
    "Europe/London": {'param3': 'value3'},
}

# Get the current timezone-aware datetime
current_utc_dt = pytz.utc.localize(datetime.utcnow())

# Determine and set the flow parameters based on the timezone
for tz, params in timezone_params.items():
    current_tz_dt = current_utc_dt.astimezone(pytz.timezone(tz))
    # Your logic to determine if the current time is within the scheduled window
    if current_time_within_scheduled_window(current_tz_dt):
        flow_parameters = params
        break

By introducing logic like this into your flow, you can customize its behavior based on the timezone it's effectively running in. You would need to determine the logic for

current_time_within_scheduled_window()

based on your specific scheduling needs. Please note that managing timezones can become complicated due to DST changes and other factors, so the above method provides flexibility but also adds complexity. It is up to you to implement the timezone handling logic within your flow. For a more in-depth look at how to work with timezones, you might want to consult the documentation or PyPI page for the

pytz

library or any equivalent timezone library you choose to use.

@Marvin how would this work? Wouldn’t it just use the timezone of the machine the flow is running on and not what cron triggered the run?

You’re absolutely right, and I apologize for the confusion. My previous example assumed that the flow could determine the timezone context internally, which isn't the case if we want it to be aware of the particular schedule that triggered it. Unfortunately, if we rely on the machine's timezone or the flow's runtime environment, we will not have access to the triggering schedule's timezone context directly. Each run is independent of the others, and they don't have knowledge of the schedule that initiated them by default. A better approach would be to pass parameters explicitly based on the schedule, if Prefect allows for per-schedule parameterization. This design could enable different schedules to trigger the same flow with distinct parameters, including those that could specify or determine the intended timezone. I will perform another search to see if Prefect's scheduling system supports passing different parameters for different schedules or if there's a pattern recommended in the documentation for handling such a use case. Please hold on for a moment while I conduct this search. It seems that the search results did not return information specific to passing parameters with different schedules directly. However, based on what we know about Prefect flows, parameters are generally passed when the flow is triggered. Given this, one approach to ensuring that the correct parameters are passed depending on the timezone might involve creating separate deployments for each timezone, each with its own set of parameters. When you define your schedules, you would then link each schedule to the corresponding deployment that has been pre-configured with the specific parameters for that timezone. These separate deployments would be managed by the Prefect Scheduler service, and this service creates new flow runs, which are triggered based on the defined schedules and parameters included in those deployments. I apologize for not being able to find a more direct solution in the documentation. For a more definitive approach, it might be beneficial to engage directly with the Prefect community or support resources, where more specialized knowledge about the exact capabilities and patterns for your use case might be available.

@Marvin it’s ok, you don’t have to apologize. Thanks for the help. Can you show me an example yaml file with multiple deployments but different cron schedules and parameters?