Set up a Workflow Scheduler automation
The Workflow Scheduler runs one of your saved workflows automatically against an audience, so research, qualification, or enrichment keeps happening without anyone pressing run. Point it at a fixed list of accounts or contacts, an existing saved view, or a filter you build on the spot, then choose whether it fires on a repeating cadence or the moment a new record starts matching. Use it when you want a workflow to keep working a source on its own, for example a weekly refresh of your key accounts, or an automatic run the instant a new inbound lead qualifies. For what a workflow is and how to build one, see Build a workflow.
The Workflows area, where the Workflow Scheduler card lives, is available to standard members. If you are signed in with read-only access you will not see Workflows in the left navigation.
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”- You need a saved workflow to schedule. If you have not built one yet, see Build a workflow.
- Decide the audience: a fixed set of accounts or contacts you pick once, an existing saved view that is re-checked every time the automation runs, or a custom filter you build directly in the scheduler. Saved views and custom filters are what let a realtime automation react to new records - a fixed list cannot, since it never changes on its own.
There are two ways to start:
From the Accounts or Contacts list (fixed audience only): select the records you want the automation to run on, open the workflow picker, and choose the Schedule button on the workflow’s row. This opens New Workflow Scheduler with that workflow and your selected records already filled in as the audience, shown as a read-only “N accounts/contacts selected” summary. A fixed-record automation can only run On a schedule - it cannot use the realtime trigger, since there is nothing new for it to react to.
From Workflows > Workflow Scheduler, select Add new to open the same New Workflow Scheduler dialog from scratch. It walks through:
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Details - name the automation and, optionally, add a description.
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Audience (skipped if you started from the Accounts/Contacts shortcut) - choose Existing Saved view and pick one from the list, or Apply custom filter to choose accounts or contacts and build a filter inline, the same way you would build any advanced filter.
Before moving on, select Check match count. It reports how many accounts or contacts your audience matches right now, counted from the audience as it stands in front of you - including edits you have not saved yet - so you can tell a filter that catches your whole book from one that catches nothing before the automation ever fires. If the filter is not finished, or you have not picked a saved view, it says so instead of returning a number. Treat the figure as a snapshot: a saved view or custom filter is re-evaluated at every run, so the audience is meant to move.
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Workflow - pick the saved workflow to run (skipped if you already chose one).
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Trigger - choose how it fires:
- On a schedule - set the Frequency (Daily with an hour, Weekly with a weekday, or Monthly with a day of the month) and an End schedule of Never or On date.
- When a record enters the audience - only available with a saved view or custom filter audience. The automation runs continuously in the background, checking for new matches roughly every five minutes, and will not process the same record more than once in a 24-hour period even if it keeps matching. Once created, the trigger type cannot be changed - if you need the other kind, create a new automation.
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Target & limits - optionally switch on Stop early at a target, the same card you get when launching a workflow by hand (see Stop a run early at a target): Stop at [number] [unit], where the units are the results the chosen workflow’s steps produce, or records matching custom conditions. Here each run ends once it has enough, and the records it did not reach wait for the next run. Then set Process at most - how many records this automation takes on each time it runs, or each day for a realtime automation. Leave it empty and it uses the default of 10,000, which the field shows you. Last, Never spend more than puts a credit cap on each run: type an amount in credits/run, or leave it on No limit. A run that reaches it pauses as Workflow limit reached until you raise or remove that run’s limit from the task feed - see Cap what a run can spend.
This is a rate, not a tripwire. If the audience matches more than the number, the extra records are not skipped and the automation is not paused - they simply wait their turn and go out on the following runs, oldest-waiting first, so a backlog is worked through rather than a shifting sample of it being re-picked. Once you have run Check match count on the previous step, this step does the arithmetic for you: it says how many runs a full pass over your audience would take at the number you have set, which is the moment an over-wide audience becomes obvious. Raise the number or narrow the audience to go faster.
Process at most and Never spend more than do different jobs. The first paces the work and never pauses anything; the second is a budget, and pausing is exactly what it is for.
Eva: the Never spend more than card only shows once the workspace has run at least one workflow or agent, because the window learns that the per-run cap is available from the workspace’s existing runs; a brand-new workspace with no runs yet will not see it, and running anything once makes it appear. The cap is applied to each run the automation fires, not to the automation’s lifetime total.
Select Create to save the automation, or Save if you are editing one that already exists.
Or ask Eva. You can describe the automation in a conversation instead of filling in the dialog - which workflow, how often, and against which audience - and Eva will set it up, list what you already have running, or remove one. She works from a saved view or a filter you describe, or from a fixed set of records if that is really what you want, and she asks you to confirm before creating anything, having told you what each run costs, how often it fires, and that it keeps running until it is deleted. Only your own saved workflows can be scheduled this way, not an individual agent.
The times you pick for a schedule are read in your own time zone, captured from your browser when you create the automation.
What happens next
Section titled “What happens next”The new automation appears in the Workflow Scheduler list, shown as a card with its name (or, if you left the name blank, “Scheduled to run [workflow] workflow”), its Audience (the saved view name, “Custom filter,” or the accounts/contacts you attached), its Trigger (the cadence, or “Realtime”), when it last ran, and its next run time.
Each automation carries a status:
- Active - the automation is live and will run at its next scheduled time, or is actively watching for new matches.
- Paused - the automation will not run until you resume it. Use the pause and resume controls on the card, or on the automation’s own page, to switch between the two.
- Invalid - the workflow or audience behind the automation is no longer available, and it will not run until you fix it.
Every run - or attempted run - shows up in the Run history on the automation’s own page: when it fired, how many records it worked on, and the result (Launched, No matches if nothing in the audience matched, Audience too large if the audience was too big to work through at all, or Failed). A launched run links straight to its entry in the task feed, so you can see what the workflow actually did. See Monitor the task feed.
The Processed column is what the run actually worked on. Where the audience matched more than one run takes, a second line underneath says how many it matched in total and that the rest follow on later runs - so a wide audience reads as progress through a queue rather than as a run that did far more than it did. The automation’s detail panel carries the same number as Work per run, marked as the default where you never set one, and the header notes how many records are waiting their turn.
When the automation fires, the chosen workflow runs against the matching records exactly as if you had run it by hand, so its agent outputs land in the same places - on each account or contact, and in the task feed. See Review agent outputs.
Deleting an automation stops future runs. It does not delete any enrichment data already produced for the accounts or contacts it touched.