Tutorial: Create and edit scheduled tasks in Azure SRE Agent

In this tutorial, you set up your agent to run tasks automatically on a schedule (from daily health checks to weekly reports) then modify them as your needs change.

Estimated time: 5 minutes

In this tutorial, you:

Prerequisites

• An agent with the connectors and permissions needed for your task
• A clear understanding of what you want to automate

Create a scheduled task

Follow these steps to create a new scheduled task from the portal.

1. Go to your agent, and select Builder > Scheduled tasks.

   

2. Select Create task in the toolbar.

3. Fill in the form:

   Field	Example value
   Task name	Daily Health Check
   Task details	Check Azure Resource Health for all resources in prod-rg. Summarize healthy, warning, and critical counts.
   Frequency	Daily
   Time of day	9:00 AM

   Don't change the default values for optional fields:

   • Response subagent: Leave empty to use the main agent.
   • Message grouping for updates: Select Use same thread to group results together.
   • Agent autonomy level: Select Autonomous (Default) to let the agent act without approval.

   Tip

   When you select Weekly, a Day of week dropdown appears (default: Monday). For Monthly, a Day of month dropdown appears (default: 1). For Custom cron, the time picker is replaced by a Cron expression (UTC) text field.

4. Select Create task.

Checkpoint: Your task appears in the list with status On. You see the task name, frequency, and next run time you configured.

Verify task execution

After the first scheduled run, select the task name to view the execution history. Each execution creates a conversation thread that shows:

• Planning steps: How the agent decides what to do.
• Tool usage: Which connectors and tools the agent calls, with timing.
• Memory context: Relevant past findings the agent considers.
• Outcome summary: Results, recommendations, and any notifications sent.

If a run fails, the thread shows the error. After three consecutive failures, the task status changes to Failed.

Edit a scheduled task

To change the schedule, update instructions, or switch the agent mode, edit the task directly.

1. In the task list, either check the task's checkbox and select Edit task in the toolbar, or select the task name to open it directly.

2. The edit dialog opens with all current values prepopulated. Change the fields you need:

   What to change	Field to update
   When it runs	Frequency and Time of day
   What it does	Task details
   Who handles it	Response subagent
   How long it runs	Repeat until or Run limit
   Safety level	Agent autonomy level

3. Select Save.

Your changes take effect immediately. The next run uses the updated configuration.

Alternative: Create from the Agent Canvas

You can also create a scheduled task directly from a custom agent node in the canvas view. This approach preselects the custom agent as the task responder, which is useful when you want a specialized custom agent to handle the task.

1. Go to Builder > Agent Canvas.
2. Find the custom agent you want to assign the task to.
3. Select the circular + button on the left side of the custom agent node.
4. Under the Trigger group, select Add scheduled task.
5. The create dialog opens with the Response custom agent preselected. Fill in the remaining fields as described in Create a scheduled task.

The task appears both on the canvas (connected to the custom agent) and in the Scheduled tasks list.

Common schedules

The following table lists example schedules for common use cases.

Next step

Related content

• Scheduled tasks
• Workflow automation
• Custom agents