How to Manage Agent Tasks
Give an AI agent a standing job, in plain English, and have it run on demand, once at a set time, or on a repeating schedule. Then read the run history to see what it actually did.
Before you begin
A task is a standing job you hand to an AI agent, written the way you would write it for a colleague. "Find the 5 most recent unresolved conversations and summarize the common themes." The agent does it with the tools you granted it, on demand or on a schedule, and records what it did.
Plan and role
Agent tasks live on the Connections page, which is available on the Enterprise plan, and during the free trial, to Admins and Owners.
Before you start
Tasks run using an agent and its tools, so you need at least one active AI agent first. If you have none, the New Task button is disabled and the page tells you to create one on the AI Agent tab. See Configure AI Agents.
An agent can only do in a task what its tools allow. If a task needs to email someone, the agent needs Send Email enabled and Allow outbound actions turned on.
Create a task
Select Connections in the sidebar (under DEVELOPER TOOLS), open the Tasks tab, then select New Task.
Name it
Give it a name you will recognize in a list, for example "Summarize today's conversations".
Pick the agent
Choose which agent runs it. Its enabled tools decide what the task can actually reach.
Write the instruction
Describe exactly what the agent should do. Be specific about scope and output: "Find the 5 most recent unresolved conversations and summarize the common themes" beats "check on conversations". Vague instructions produce vague runs.
Choose when it runs
Set the Schedule, then select Create Task.
The three schedule types
| Schedule | When it runs | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Manual (run on demand) | Only when you select Run now | Ad-hoc questions, and testing a new instruction before you automate it |
| Once (at a time) | At the date and time you pick | A one-off job tied to an event, such as the morning after a campaign |
| Recurring | Hourly, Daily, or Weekly | Standing reports and routine sweeps |
Start manual
Create a new task as Manual and run it a few times first. Read what it produces, tighten the wording, and only then switch it to a schedule. A badly worded recurring task quietly produces noise every day.
Manage your tasks
The Tasks sub-tab lists everything you have created, showing the task and its instruction, the agent that runs it, its schedule, and its status.
- Run now runs the task immediately, whatever its schedule. The button shows Running while it works.
- Pause stops a scheduled task from firing without deleting it. The same menu offers Resume.
- Delete removes the task for good.
Read the run history
The Run History sub-tab is where you check the agent's work. Each run shows the task, its status, what triggered it (a manual run or the schedule), how long it took, and when it happened. Opening a run gives you the result text and the tool trace, the steps the agent actually took.
The trace is the useful part when something looks wrong. It shows whether the agent reached for the tool you expected, and what came back, which usually explains a disappointing answer faster than rewording the instruction.
The Scheduled sub-tab filters the list down to the tasks that run on their own, so you can see your automation at a glance without the manual ones in the way.
Verify it's working
- Create a manual task and select Run now.
- Confirm it finishes and appears under Run History with a success status.
- Open the run and check the tool trace shows the tools you expected.
Troubleshooting
The New Task button is disabled
You have no active AI agent. Create one on the AI Agent tab first, see Configure AI Agents.
A run finished but the result is empty or generic
The agent probably lacked the tool it needed. Open the run's tool trace to see what it tried, then enable the missing tool on the agent. If it needed to act rather than read, check Allow outbound actions is on.
A scheduled task stopped running
Check its status on the Tasks sub-tab. A paused task stays in the list but does not fire, select Resume from its row menu.