[web2py] background operations?

[mika]

Hello, My application needs to download ON DEMAND some data from external 
xml. I would like user to can start the process, and just see that the job 
was started, and then to use application normally. The downloading and 
parsing xml happens in the background, after this user is notified (flash 
popup?). How to achieve this? I checked about cron, I checked about services 
and background process but I am not sure is it proper way to do that. BR, 
Mika