Scheduled workflows let you automate actions at specific times, without needing a request or user event to occur. They’re ideal for managing routine operations, time-sensitive follow-ups, and periodic audits, without manual intervention.
Scheduled workflows sit alongside event-based workflows inside the Workflow Builder, giving you a powerful, flexible way to automate your It operations at scale with both recurring and one-time automations.
With scheduled workflows, you can:
Automate recurring checks – Run daily audits to escalate unresolved requests or apply tags to overdue tickets.
Execute time-based actions – Close inactive requests after 72 hours or send joining credentials on an employee’s start date.
Improve operational efficiency – Eliminate manual reviews and reduce turnaround time, by running workflows exactly when you need them to.
Maintain consistency and compliance – Schedule repeatable actions like quarterly access reviews or monthly maintenance checks.
Setting up a scheduled workflow
Navigate to Settings > [Your workspace] > Workflows.
Choose the Schedule based tab at the top left to switch to the scheduled workflows list.
Click on Create and give your workflow a name and description.
Configuring the schedule
For the Schedule-based trigger, choose how often and when the workflow should run:
Hourly – Runs every X hours.
Daily – Runs every X days at the specified time of day and time zone.
Weekly – Runs on selected days of the week, at the specified time and time zone.
Monthly – Runs on specified dates in the month, at the specified time and time zone.
For daily, weekly, and monthly runs, you can also specify the time zone and the time of day to ensure your workflows run correctly for global teams.
One-time execution per request: Turn on "Do not run again on the same object" to run the workflow only once per matching request, regardless of how many times the schedule is triggered.
Filtering requests with conditions
Conditions allow you to narrow down the requests the workflow applies to. They're optional, but useful for filtering based on:
Request status (e.g., Pending, Waiting) or priority (e.g., Critical, High)
Request type
Response activity (e.g., last requester responded at)
User or asset attributes
Custom attributes
Built-in 6-month window: Scheduled workflows automatically include a filter to process only requests created within the last 6 months. This ensures all workflows stay efficient and act only on recent, relevant data.
Understanding time-based filters
You can also filter based on time-based attributes like Created at, Last requester responded at, Last agent responded time, Last updated at, etc. to identify requests based on activity or inactivity over time.
Each field supports time operators such as:
is exactly
on or before
on or after
is within
And allows you to set relative time windows like 3 days ago, 1 week ago or 30 days from now.
For example, to close inactive requests where the requester hasn’t responded in 3 days, you would set the condition as:
- Attribute: Last requester responded at
- Time operator: on or before
- Value: 3 days ago
Adding actions
Actions define what happens when the workflow runs. You can:
Update request, asset, or user attributes
Add or remove tags
Send notifications via Slack, Teams, or email
Request additional details via a form or send for approval
Create or update records (requests, assets, users)
Add additional conditions or include a delay
Publishing and managing workflows
Click Publish in the top-right corner of the workflow to activate it. You can also:
View all workflows – From the Workflow Builder, see both published and unpublished workflows.
Search and sort – Find workflows by name, or sort by last modified, created date, or publish status.
Edit schedules – Open an existing workflow to update frequency, conditions, or actions.
Unpublish workflows – Temporarily pause scheduled workflows without deleting them.
Execution limits for scheduled workflows
Behind the scenes, each action in a workflow is treated as a job. This helps the system track progress and manage performance efficiently. There are three types of jobs:
Timer jobs – Steps that pause the workflow for a set duration
User jobs – User approvals or calls to external systems (like webhooks or third-party app actions)
Async jobs – Background actions like updates, or notifications
To keep workflows running smoothly, each organization can have up to 300 pending jobs at a time. This includes steps that are waiting to run or retry.
Once this limit is reached, scheduled workflows will slow down automatically to prevent overload.
Event-based workflows are not affected by these limits.
Use filters to narrow down large request sets, avoid overly broad triggers, and keep workflows focused. This helps you stay well within job limits, even as your automations scale.
Key considerations
Scheduled workflows run independently of event-based workflows, so both types can operate in parallel.
Workflows always execute in the time zone you configure—be mindful when scheduling across global teams.