Overrides

An override is a time-bounded exception to a schedule. Use it when you need a resource up (or down) for a specific window and don’t want the cron to fight you.

The Overrides page; each active or expired override with its type, reason, and window.

When to use an override

Situation	What to do
Demo at 8pm tonight; dev cluster normally sleeps at 7pm	Force ON until 10pm
Code freeze for the next 48 hours; nothing should start	Force OFF on the group for 48 hours
Investigating an incident; stop the autoscaler resizing things underneath you	Force ON on the affected resources until resolved
Release tonight; staging should stay up regardless of schedule	Force ON on the staging group

If the change is permanent, edit the schedule instead. Overrides are for windows, not for new policy.

Create an override

1. Pick the target

   Either a single resource (from the resource detail drawer) or a resource group (from the group detail page).

2. Pick a direction

   Force ON prevents any scheduled stop from firing. Force OFF prevents any scheduled start from firing. ZopNight does not start a stopped resource just because you set Force ON; it only blocks the schedule from stopping it.

3. Set the expiry

   Choose a date/time and timezone. The override clears itself when the expiry passes; you don’t need to remember to remove it.

4. Add a reason

   Required. Other admins seeing this override later need to know why it exists. ZopNight rejects overrides without a reason.

Active overrides

The Overrides page lists every active override across the org with:

• Target (resource or group)
• Direction (Force ON / Force OFF)
• Time remaining (e.g. “expires in 5h 23m”)
• Reason
• Who set it and when

Click any row to cancel the override early. Cancelling is immediate; the next scheduled cron fire will run normally.

How overrides interact with schedules

Overrides take precedence over schedules but do not start or stop resources on their own. Think of an override as a “do not touch” sign that prevents the schedule from acting.

Current state	Override	Scheduled action	Result
Running	Force ON	Stop	Stop suppressed. Resource stays running.
Stopped	Force ON	Start	Start runs normally. Override has no effect.
Running	Force OFF	Stop	Stop runs normally. Override has no effect.
Stopped	Force OFF	Start	Start suppressed. Resource stays stopped.

If you want to actually start or stop a resource right now and ignore the schedule, use manual start/stop from the resource row menu; see Resources.

Notifications

ZopNight notifies the attached channel when an override is:

• Set
• Cleared manually
• Expired automatically

This is opt-in per channel. By default the Slack/Teams/GChat channel attached to the resource or group gets the notification.

Audit trail

Every override action (create, manual cancel, automatic expiry) is in the audit log with the actor, timestamp, and reason. Use the audit log when you’re investigating “who turned off prod last weekend.”