Batch Job Scheduling And Monitoring

Batch Job Scheduling And Monitoring

This skill activates when a Salesforce admin, developer, or operator needs to monitor, diagnose, or manage async job execution in an org. It covers the Setup > Apex Jobs and Scheduled Jobs views, direct SOQL queries against AsyncApexJob, concurrent job limits, failure notification patterns, and the difference between how Batch Apex and Flow scheduled jobs surface in monitoring.

Before Starting

Gather this context before working on anything in this domain:

• Identify the job type: Batch Apex (JobType='BatchApex'), Scheduled Apex (JobType='ScheduledApex'), Queueable (JobType='Queueable'), Future (JobType='Future'), or Flow scheduled interview (JobType='ScheduledFlow').
• Determine whether the issue is a job that is stuck/running, a job that failed silently, or a job that never fired.
• Note the org's concurrent Batch Apex limit — the default is 5 concurrent jobs. This is the most common cause of jobs staying in "Queued" status without progressing.

Core Concepts

Apex Jobs UI vs Scheduled Jobs UI

Salesforce provides two distinct monitoring views:

1. Setup > Apex Jobs — shows AsyncApexJob records for Batch Apex, Queueable, @future, and Scheduled Apex invocations. Displays status, number of records processed, errors, and completion time.
2. Setup > Scheduled Jobs — shows Scheduled Apex definitions (the cron-based schedule) and their next fire time. Also shows Schedule-Triggered Flow Interviews. This view does NOT show the individual Batch Apex executions triggered by a scheduled job — those appear in Apex Jobs.

Flow scheduled jobs (Schedule-Triggered Flow) appear only in Setup > Scheduled Jobs as "Schedule-Triggered Flow Interview". They do NOT appear in Apex Jobs.

AsyncApexJob as the Query Surface

All Apex async jobs are queryable via SOQL against AsyncApexJob. This is the programmatic equivalent of the Apex Jobs UI and is the only way to retrieve historical job data programmatically.

Key fields:

• Status — Holding, Queued, Processing, Completed, Failed, Aborted
• JobType — BatchApex, ScheduledApex, Queueable, Future, BatchApexWorker
• NumberOfErrors — count of batch chunks that failed (for Batch Apex)
• TotalJobItems — total batch chunks
• CompletedDate — when the job finished (null if still running)
• ExtendedStatus — error message for failed jobs (up to 255 chars)

SELECT Id, ApexClass.Name, Status, NumberOfErrors, TotalJobItems,
       CreatedDate, CompletedDate, ExtendedStatus
FROM AsyncApexJob
WHERE JobType = 'BatchApex'
ORDER BY CreatedDate DESC
LIMIT 20

Concurrent Batch Apex Limit

The org-wide limit is 5 concurrent Batch Apex jobs in the Processing state. Jobs beyond 5 wait in Queued or Holding status. This limit is independent of the 100 scheduled Apex job limit.

• Queued — waiting for an executor slot. Normal if fewer than 5 jobs are in Processing.
• Holding — system backpressure — the job is waiting to be queued. Common in shared environments.

The concurrent limit can be increased above 5 via a Salesforce support case for Enterprise+ orgs.

Scheduled Apex Does Not Retry on Failure

When a Scheduled Apex job fails during execution, the schedule definition is NOT deleted. The scheduler will fire the job again at the next scheduled time. The failed execution is recorded in AsyncApexJob with Status='Failed'. There is no native automatic retry on immediate failure — the org waits until the next cron window.

Common Patterns

SOQL Monitoring Dashboard Query

When to use: Quickly checking the status of all Batch Apex jobs in the last 24 hours without navigating to Setup.

How it works:

SELECT ApexClass.Name, Status, JobType, NumberOfErrors, TotalJobItems,
       CompletedDate, ExtendedStatus
FROM AsyncApexJob
WHERE JobType IN ('BatchApex', 'ScheduledApex', 'Queueable')
  AND CreatedDate = LAST_N_HOURS:24
ORDER BY CreatedDate DESC
LIMIT 50

Filter to Status = 'Failed' to find only failures. Check ExtendedStatus for the error message.

Failure Notification via finish() Method

When to use: A Batch Apex job needs to send an alert when it completes with errors — Salesforce does not email on batch failure by default.

How it works:

global class MyBatch implements Database.Batchable<sObject> {
    global Database.QueryLocator start(Database.BatchableContext bc) {
        return Database.getQueryLocator('SELECT Id FROM Account WHERE ...');
    }
    global void execute(Database.BatchableContext bc, List<Account> scope) {
        // processing logic
    }
    global void finish(Database.BatchableContext bc) {
        AsyncApexJob job = [
            SELECT NumberOfErrors, TotalJobItems, ExtendedStatus
            FROM AsyncApexJob
            WHERE Id = :bc.getJobId()
        ];
        if (job.NumberOfErrors > 0) {
            Messaging.SingleEmailMessage mail = new Messaging.SingleEmailMessage();
            mail.setToAddresses(new List<String>{'admin@example.com'});
            mail.setSubject('Batch Job Failed: ' + job.NumberOfErrors + ' errors');
            mail.setPlainTextBody(
                'Job: MyBatch\nErrors: ' + job.NumberOfErrors +
                '/' + job.TotalJobItems + '\nDetails: ' + job.ExtendedStatus
            );
            Messaging.sendEmail(new List<Messaging.SingleEmailMessage>{mail});
        }
    }
}

Why not rely on platform notifications: Salesforce does not send email or create alerts when a batch job fails. The finish() method is the only hook available to the developer for failure notification.

Decision Guidance

Recommended Workflow

Step-by-step instructions for an AI agent or practitioner working on this task:

1. Identify the job type (Batch Apex, Scheduled Apex, Flow scheduled, Queueable) — this determines which Setup view and query to use.
2. Navigate to Setup > Apex Jobs for Batch/Scheduled/Queueable. For Flow scheduled jobs, navigate to Setup > Scheduled Jobs.
3. Run a targeted SOQL query against AsyncApexJob filtered by JobType and CreatedDate to retrieve job history programmatically.
4. For failed jobs: read ExtendedStatus for the error message. If truncated, check debug logs or the Apex class's finish() method for more detail.
5. For stuck Queued jobs: count concurrent Batch Apex jobs in Processing state — if 5 or more, the queue is at capacity.
6. Implement a finish() notification if the batch class does not already send one on failure.

Review Checklist

Run through these before marking work in this area complete:

• Verified job type maps to correct monitoring location (Apex Jobs vs Scheduled Jobs)
• SOQL query against AsyncApexJob is scoped to the correct JobType and time range
• ExtendedStatus checked for failed jobs — not just the Status field
• Concurrent Batch Apex job count confirmed against 5-job limit
• Batch class finish() method sends notification when NumberOfErrors > 0
• Scheduled Apex schedule definition confirmed in Scheduled Jobs UI (separate from execution records)

Salesforce-Specific Gotchas

Non-obvious platform behaviors that cause real production problems:

1. Flow scheduled jobs do NOT appear in Setup > Apex Jobs — Admins looking for a scheduled flow that isn't running check Apex Jobs and see nothing. Flow schedule-triggered interviews only appear in Setup > Scheduled Jobs as "Schedule-Triggered Flow Interview". This is a common source of confusion.
2. Batch Apex failure does not delete the Scheduled Apex schedule — If a batch class is invoked by a scheduled Apex and fails, the batch fails but the schedule continues. The next cron window fires another instance. If the failure is caused by a data issue that isn't fixed, the job will keep failing on every scheduled run without any notification (unless finish() sends one).
3. NumberOfErrors counts failed CHUNKS, not failed RECORDS — For Batch Apex with a scope of 200, a NumberOfErrors of 1 means one chunk of up to 200 records failed — not necessarily one record. The actual record-level failure requires reading the exception in Database.SaveResult[] in the execute() method.
4. Aborting a job removes it from Apex Jobs immediately — Calling System.abortJob(jobId) removes the job from the queue. If you need a record of the abort for audit purposes, log it before aborting.

Output Artifacts

Related Skills

• batch-apex-patterns — writing and designing Batch Apex classes
• apex-scheduled-jobs — implementing the Schedulable interface and cron expressions
• custom-logging-and-monitoring — centralized logging patterns for Apex automation