Have you ever wanted to send out emails everyday with the latest information from your site, such as all of the latest posts, or latest comments? WordPress gives us a really simple function that allows us to do exactly that.
The function looks like this:
wp_schedule_event($timestamp, $recurrence, $hook, $args);
$timestamp is the number of seconds, from the time the event is scheduled, until the event takes place for the first time. The timestamp must be in a Unix timestamp format.
$recurrence is how often the event should take place. Optional values are:
- hourly
- twicedaily
- daily
$hook is the action hook to be exceuted.
$args are optional arguments that can be passed to the function called by $hook.
So, for example, let’s say we want to execute a function that emails all of our subscribers once a day. First, our email function will be something like this:
1 2 3 4 | function email_subscribers() { // function code here } |
Next we need to create a WordPress action hook that will be linked to our email_subscribers function:
1 | add_action('email_subscribers_action', 'email_subscribers'); |
Then our schedule function looks like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | function schedule_emails() { // this checks to make sure this event isn't already scheduled if ( !wp_next_scheduled( 'email_subscribers_action' ) ) { wp_schedule_event(time(), 'daily', 'email_subscribers_action'); } } |
By passing the PHP time() function to wp_schedule_event, we specify that the first occurrence of the event should happen now.
The final step is to hook our schedule function into WordPress so that it gets initiated.
1 | add_action('wp', 'schedule_emails'); |
Assuming you have written the function that does the actual emailing, you now have a schedule set up that will send out an email once a day.
If you’d like further tips on how adjust the time your event gets scheduled for, and to learn about how to schedule one-time-only events, check out my Events With WP Schedule Single Event post.
For further reference, read the WordPress Codex entry.
Hope you enjoy it!
Cheers,
Pippin
