Task scheduling

[jwe-apple]

We think that maintaining a list of tasks, and scheduling when they need to occur, is going to be common to apps using ResearchKit.

AppCore has a task scheduling component, which stores schedules for tasks in a CoreData database. Schedules are defined with cron-like expressions. It interacts with a particular back-end service to obtain schedules, and then stores and applies these schedules. See APCTasksReminderManager, APCScheduler, etc.

This task is to review the AppCore task scheduler, and propose how to generalize it for ResearchKit in a way that's more agnostic to the back-end, and can function using local notifications only.

Note that work is continuing on AppCore at the moment to improve support for offsets for the starting point of schedules, and better control of "grace periods" (how long after a scheduled event time the user has to respond).

Unit tests required!

See also #94

[rsanchezsaez]

The scheduling tests in AppCore seem not to pass. Show we fix those as pre-requisite to this?

[jwe-apple]

No, just open an issue for that. There is continuing work on AppCore and I'll make sure the relevant team sees it.

[httang12]

I am starting looking into the APCScheduler architecture for scheduling and decoupling it from AppCore as I needed that functionality for the project I am working on. But from a road map perspective is the scheduling component going to be part of researchkit core or still live in appcore?

[peculiar]

There's ongoing work to refactor the schedule and scheduler concepts. The schedule classes will not have any external dependencies, except to utility code. The scheduler class will need additional refactoring to eliminate undesired dependencies.

[YuanZhu-apple]

I am working this.

[nageshkumarmishra]

Is decoupling of APCScheduler is done ? One of my projects has a requirement of scheduling components.

[Pariecemckinney-apple]

Closing due to inactivity. Please feel free to reopen if you would like the conversation to continue.