What Wakes a Worker
Choose the business events and schedules that start a worker, in plain language.
A worker only acts when something wakes it. There are two kinds of triggers:
- A business event. The events you can choose are:
- An invoice becomes overdue
- A client accepts an estimate
- A document is signed
- A deal is won
- A form is submitted
- A new contact is added
- An expense is added
- A client emails you
- A task changes status
- A project is created
- A schedule, such as every week, or on the 1st of every month, at a time and in a time zone you choose.
Each job comes with sensible defaults. See The six jobs.
Change what wakes a worker
- Open AI Workers and choose the worker.
- Find Wakes up when beside the worker's tabs (on a smaller screen, under Details). While hiring, the same list is called What wakes it up.
- Select When something happens to add an event, or On a schedule to add a schedule. Edit or remove an existing one with its pencil and bin buttons. Events are listed under When this happens, grouped by area of the product, with a short description.
- For a schedule, choose How often (every day, week, or month), the time (At), and the Timezone. Weekly schedules also need a day (On). Monthly schedules need a day of the month (On the).
- Save the trigger.
You can turn a trigger off without deleting it. A worker with no active trigger never wakes on its own. You can still give it a one-off assignment. See Give a worker an assignment.
Scheduled triggers show when the Next check is. Removing a trigger stops it from opening or checking cases. Cases that are already open stay as they are.
A worker you describe in your own words gets its trigger from your description: "every Monday" becomes a schedule, and "whenever a project is created" becomes an event. You can change it here like any other trigger.
Email awareness
If you connect a mailbox, an email from someone who is already one of your contacts becomes an A client emails you event, so a worker can wake when a client replies. Email from people who are not in your contacts does not wake a worker. Collections only reacts to a reply when it already has an open case for that client. See Email awareness.
What happens when a trigger fires
When a trigger fires for a record, the worker opens a case for that record, or continues the case it already has. It then reads what it needs, decides what to do, and proposes actions for you to approve. It does not send or change anything on its own unless you have granted that action. See Cases and Approvals.
Each run uses AI credits from your monthly allowance. A trigger that fires often, such as every new expense or every new contact, uses more credits than a weekly one. Check Settings > Billing to see your overall credit use.
Connect a workflow instead
If you already have a workflow that finds the right records, you can end it with the Ask an AI worker action to hand a record to a worker. See Add and configure actions.