Instead of waiting for input, a Scheduled Task triggers your entire workflow automatically on a schedule you define. The rest of the flow runs exactly as it would with a manual trigger
Popular Use Cases
Scheduled Tasks are useful any time you want something to happen automatically and repeatedly:
- Daily briefings — Generate and send a morning summary of news, metrics, or tasks to a Slack channel or email.
- Content drafts — Automatically draft a new blog post or social media update on a weekly schedule for a human to review.
- Report generation — Pull data from an API or database and compile a formatted report every Monday morning.
- Lead follow-ups — Trigger a CRM update or follow-up email sequence on a set cadence.
- Inventory alerts — Check stock levels daily and send a notification if anything falls below a threshold.
- SEO monitoring — Run a keyword or ranking check weekly and log the results to a spreadsheet.
- Data sync — Push updated records from one system to another on a nightly schedule.
- Competitor tracking — Scrape and summarize competitor pages on a recurring basis and deliver the digest to your inbox.
- Internal digests — Aggregate activity from multiple tools and send a weekly summary to your team.
How to Set Up a Scheduled Task
Step 1: Replace the Chat Input with a Scheduled Task
Open your flow in the flow editor . Your Flow likely starts with the default Chat Input component. Delete it.
In the component panel on the left, open the Triggers category and pick the Scheduled Task component. Connect it to the first component in your flow, just as the Chat Input was connected before.
Step 2: Configure the Schedule
Click the Scheduled Task component to open its settings. By clicking the Schedule setting, you can set the frequency at which the flow should run.
You can choose from common intervals like hourly, daily, or weekly, or define a custom cron expression for more precise control.
Step 3: Add an Input Message And Variables (Optional)
If your flow expects a starting message, for example, a prompt that tells the AI what to do, you can enter it in the Input Message field. This message will be passed into the flow every time the schedule fires, exactly as if a user had typed it.
For example, if your flow generates a weekly content brief, your input message might be:
“Generate a content brief for this week focused on AI automation trends.”
If your flow uses variables — such as a target URL, a recipient email address, or a topic — you can define them directly in the Scheduled Task settings. These variables will be injected into the flow on every run, so you don’t need to hardcode them elsewhere.
Step 4: Save & Publish
That’s it. Save your schedule, and don’t forget to hit publish. Your workflow will now run automatically at the interval you configured..
Ready to grow your business?
Start your free trial today and see results within days.
Pairing Scheduled Tasks with the Right Output
A Scheduled Task on its own is most powerful when the flow doesn’t end with a chat response. Since no one is sitting at a chat window waiting for a reply, the output should go somewhere useful automatically.
Good output pairings for scheduled flows include:
- Slack or email notifications — Deliver the result directly to a person or team.
- CMS integrations — Push a content draft to WordPress or another platform for review.
- Spreadsheet or database writes — Log structured data for tracking or reporting.
- CRM updates — Write enriched records or trigger follow-up sequences in HubSpot or similar tools.
- Webhooks — Send the output to any external system that accepts HTTP requests.
If you’re still using a Chat Output component in a scheduled flow, the results will be saved in the workspace history or session history of the flow, but no one will see them in real time. Consider replacing it with an integration that delivers the output where it’s actually needed.