Contents

7.2. Workflow Automation

This section covers some tools to automate the workflow of your Python project such as scheduling a time to run your code, sending notifications when your program finishes, etc.

7.2.1. Schedule: Schedule your Python Functions to Run At a Specific Time

If you want to schedule Python functions to run periodically at a certain day or time of the week, use schedule.

In the code snippet below, I use schedule to get incoming data at 10:30 every day and train the model at 8:00 every Wednesday.

import schedule 
import time 

def get_incoming_data():
    print("Get incoming data")

def train_model():
    print("Retraining model")

schedule.every().day.at("10:30").do(get_incoming_data)
schedule.every().wednesday.at("08:00").do(train_model)

while True:
    schedule.run_pending()
    time.sleep(1)

Link to schedule

7.2.2. notify-send: Send a Desktop Notification after Finishing Executing a File

If you want to receive a desktop notification after finishing executing a file in Linux, use notify-send.

In the code below, after finishing executing file_to_run.py, you will receive a notification on the top of your screen to inform you that the process is terminated.

python file_to_run.py ; notify-send "Process terminated"

7.2.3. knockknock: Receive an Email When Your Code Finishes Executing

It can take hours or days to train a model and you can be away from the computer when your model finishes training. Wouldn’t it be nice to receive an email when your code finishes executing? There is an app for that knock-knock.

All it takes is one line of code specifying your email address.

from knockknock import email_sender 

@email_sender(recipient_emails=['<your_email@address.com>', '<your_second_email@adress.com>'],
sender_email="<grandma's_email@gmail.com>")
def train_your_nicest_model(your_nicest_parameters):
    import time 
    time.sleep(10_000)
    return {'loss': 0.9}

You can even have it send to your slack channel so everybody in your team can see. See the docs of this library here.