Scheduled triggers
Scheduled triggers
10 min
Stephen Bronnec1. How scheduled triggers work
Scheduled triggers run agents on a recurring schedule you define in natural language.
To add a scheduled trigger to an existing agent, navigate to the Agent builder menu of the agent you're interested in.
Setting up a scheduled trigger:
- Open your agent in Agent Builder
- Navigate to Triggers section
- Select Schedule
- Describe the schedule in natural language (e.g., "Every weekday at 8:30am" or "First Friday of each month at 2pm")
- Dust will understand your description and generate the actual schedule, meaning that for example "weekdays at 8 AM Pacific time" becomes "At 8:00 AM, Monday through Friday, in Los Angeles time". That way you can make sure the schedule matches your intent before activating it!
- Add optional message for context
- Save agent
And that's it! Your agent will now be triggered automatically, at the time and at the frequency you have selected.
Check it out in action:
2. Common use cases for scheduled triggers
- Daily pipeline reviews: Your agent scans CRM updates, flags deals at risk, and posts insights to Slack every morning at 9 AM
- Weekly metrics summaries: Friday at 4 PM, your agent pulls data from multiple sources and generates a performance report
- Monthly compliance checks: On the first of each month, your agent audits permissions across systems and flags anomalies
- Hourly monitoring: Every hour during business hours, your agent checks key metrics and alerts the team if thresholds are breached
3. Hands-on: build your @CompetitorPulse agent
This hands-on tutorial will walk you through using theNotiontool to create and update battle cards. The tutorial will leverage theGo Deepskill to ensure thorough analysis, and to set up scheduled triggers so your agent runs automatically.If you don’t use Notion, you can adapt this use case to work with your own tech stack. For example, the Google Drive tool would allow you to create a folder and Google docs for your battle cards. Check out our list of available MCP tools and pick the one that works for you! (each tool has a dedicated page in our tools documentation: https://docs.dust.tt/docs/tools)
3.1. Create a new agent
From the Dust homepage, click on "Create", then create an agent from scratch. This will take you to the Agent Builder interface.
3.2. Instructions
Write your agent instructions. The key here is to have the agent check whether a battle card already exists before deciding what to do. A good set of instructions should cover:
- How to check for an existing battle card in Notion
- What to do if none exists (full creation with
Go Deep) - What to do if one already exists (refresh the recent news section and any section where
Go Deepreturns something different from what exists in the battle card) - The expected output structure in both cases
🤓 Not sure where to start? Just ask
@promptWriter to help you write your instructions from a one-line description of what you want!Here is a ready-to-use set of instructions. Replace the placeholders with your actual company context:
# Agent Instructions You are CompetitorPulse, an expert competitive intelligence analyst. Your goal is to create and maintain Notion battle cards for competitors.Context: We are [My Company], selling [My Product].When given a competitor name, start by using the Notion tool to search for an existing battle card for that competitor.If no battle card exists: - Use Go Deep to perform a thorough web research on the competitor. Cover their product, positioning, pricing, recent announcements, and market perception. - Create a new Notion page titled "Battle Card - [Competitor Name]" structured as follows:## [Competitor Name]### 1. Recent News Highlights from the past 2 weeks (product launches, press releases, leadership changes).### 2. Where we are better Top 3 differentiators where we win. Be specific about features or outcomes.### 3. Where they are better (and how to answer) Top 3 areas where they have an advantage. For each, provide a short pivot script for sales to redirect the conversation.### 4. Objection Handling Common objections prospects raise regarding this competitor and the best factual responses.If a battle card already exists: - Use Go Deep to perform a thorough web research on the competitor and update any section where results give different insights from what exists in the battle card - Refresh section 1 (Recent News) with news from the past 2 weeks. - If nothing significant happened in the past 2 weeks, write "No significant updates."General Rules: - Always cite sources with dates. - Use a concise tone suitable for sales enablement. - Do not invent information. - When triggered/run with no specific instructions, look for existing battle cards and update them
3.3. Spaces
You probably don't have to change anything in the Spaces section. This is only relevant for agents that need to access confidential or restricted data.
3.4. Capabilities and knowledge
Under "Capabilities and knowledge", click on "Add capabilities", then use the search bar at the top of the right side panel to find and add the Web search tool. This is what allows your agent to find fresh competitive intelligence.
In the same panel, search for "Notion", and click Add. This will give your agent the ability to read from Notion pages you have access to, and to write to them when you allow it to.
Also add the “Go Deep” skill. It enables thorough analysis for creating new battle cards. (Keep in mind that
Go Deep can take several minutes to run.)Add data that describes your product or service offering. This will enable the agent to compare it to competitors to give you relevant differentiators. This could be a product changelog, a product roadmap, a catalog of services…
⚠️ Reminder: Only select the data you actually need! For this agent, web search and the Notion battle cards section are sufficient.
3.5. Triggers
You can automate weekly refreshes so your battle cards are always up to date.
- In the "Triggers" section, click "Add triggers".
- Select "Schedule".
- In the Scheduler field, describe your desired frequency in natural language — e.g. "Every Monday at 9am". Make sure to check that it was interpreted correctly!
- You can also add a message for your agent when the trigger runs — e.g. "Check and update battle cards for [Competitor A], [Competitor B], [Competitor C]".
Since existing battle cards will already be in Notion, the agent will automatically know to only refresh stale content.
3.6. Settings
Under "Settings", give your agent the name "CompetitorPulse" (or something similar if that name is already taken).
The description should be auto-generated, but review it to make sure it reflects both the creation and update capabilities.
When ready, save your agent!
3.7. Try it out!
Test on a competitor you know well. Just give the agent a competitor name and let it figure out what to do:
"[Competitor Y]"
Your scheduled trigger will keep your battle cards fresh automatically every week. 🎯
3.8. Bonus: generalize it!
The same pattern works for any topic you want to track over time. Swap competitors for industry regulations, funding activity, or a specific technology trend. The agent will check for an existing page, and either build or update accordingly. 🤖
Test Your Knowledge
Answer 5 questions — score 3 or more to pass
Ready to test your understanding of this chapter?