Schedule task in ASP.NET

Question

I\'m trying to create a task scheduler that runs twice a day. I\'ve implemented a task scheduler using CacheItemRemovedCallaback, as suggested in this post and this blog. I

Answer 1

I found solutions that mention Windows services or Windows task scheduler

That's what you should be using. A web application doesn't "always run." It responds to requests, that's all. Unless something is actively making a request to the website, it's not doing anything.

but that doesn't work for me since I need to be able to let the admin configure the times through the web application

Sure it does. More than one application can share a single database. In this case you'd have two applications:

• A Web Application where users can login and maintain the data related to the scheduled tasks.
• A Windows Service (or scheduled Console Application) which runs in the background on the server and executes the configured tasks which it reads from the database.

Answer 2

Using hacks like Windows Scheduled Tasks and Control Panel abilities are not nice solutions. They sucks most of the time, they are a headache.

You can use ATrigger scheduling service. A .Net library is also available to create scheduled tasks without overhead.

//Tags: Tags are required to identify tasks. 
//read more at: http://atrigger.com/docs/wiki/9/rest-api-v10-parameter-tag_
Dictionary<string, string> tags = new Dictionary<string, string>();
tags.Add("type", "test");

//Create
ATrigger.Client.doCreate(TimeQuantity.Hour(), "12", "http://www.example.com/myTask?something", tags);

Disclaimer: I was among the ATrigger team. It's a freeware and I have not any commercial purpose.