Every now then it may be helpful to automate running R scripts. One example would be to generate a weekly Quarto report. Although there is an R package called taskscheduleR that may work in some cases. In my experience, however, this package did not work possibly due to my use of R environments with the renv package. The following provides one solution to automate running R scripts in Windows using a batch file and the native Windows Task Scheduler app.

Write an R script

The first step is to write an R script that is designed to run on designated schedule. In this example, we create a dummy data frame that will get saved as an Excel file with the date the script was run as its name. This is just a simple example to illustrate the process, however in practice, automated tasks can become much more elaborate.

library(here)
library(writexl)

# Set the date to append to file
date <- Sys.Date()

# Create a dummy data frame to output
data <- as.data.frame(date)

# Write the dummy data frame to Excel with the date as the file name
write_xlsx(data, path = here(str_c(date, ".xlsx")))

Write a batch file

The next step is to create a .bat file contains a set of commands. The .bat file will be called to run on a designated schedule. The .bat files can be created with a text editor like Notepad or Sublime Text and will look like the code chunk below and has three main parts.

• In the first part, CD is used to change to the root directory of the R project that is linked to the R script that needs to run automatically.
• The second part is a series sub commands that begins with CALL
  • The first subcommand is to set the path to the Rscript.exe program followed by the -e option
  • The second subcommand is to load the renv project environment. This is only necessary if you have your project set up with renv.
  • The next subcommand is to set the path to the R script
  • The last subcommmand is to pipe any warnings or messages from the R console to a file called Output.log.
• Finally the third part is to use the exit command close up the R session and command prompt.

CD C:\R\PROJECT\ROOT\DIRECTORY

CALL "C:\Program Files\R\R-4.2.2\bin\Rscript.exe" -e "renv::load('C:/Users/USER/PATH/TO/ROOT/DIRECTORY'); source('C:/Users/USER/PATH/TO/ROOT/DIRECTORY/scripts/r_script.R')" > "C:/Users/USER/PATH/TO/ROOT/DIRECTORY/scripts/Output.log" 2>&1   

EXIT

Use task Schedule R

• Search for “Task Scheduler” in the Windows Taskbar Search field
• Find and open Task Scheduler
• Right click on Task Scheduler Library and select “New Folder”
• Rename the folder to organize any future tasks related to this project
• Select the new folder
• In the right hand pane select Create Basic Task
• Follow through the prompts by:
  • Naming the task
  • Describing it
  • Setting the Trigger (e.g. daily, weekly, etc.)
  • Refining the start time, launch time, and recurrence
  • Select “Start a program” radio button
  • Then “Browse…” to the path of the .bat file