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Office Agent tasks are the main way you tell Office Agent what to do. An Office Agent task is a scheduled office workflow inside Office Agent. It is separate from the checklist and field-task workflow used on a Job card. Each Office Agent task keeps its own conversation history. That history is shared across staff who can access Office Agent. If you are looking for job checklists or field task assignments, use How to create and use Checklists.

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How to create a new task

  1. Open Office Agent in the Online Dashboard.
  2. Click New Task.
  3. Enter a task name.
  4. Enter Frequency & Time in plain English.
  5. Enter the task instructions.
  6. If you need to notify someone, choose them in Who to notify.
  7. If you want to control when notifications are sent, add that in When to notify.
  8. Review the Tools tab and disable anything the task should not use.
  9. Click Create.
Create a new Office Agent task
  1. A task you create manually starts in the off state.
A manually created Office Agent task starts in the off state
  1. If you want the task to run automatically, turn it on after creating it.
If you only want to test the task first, keep it turned off and use the play button to run it now so you can review the result before relying on it more broadly.

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How Frequency & Time works

The Frequency & Time field accepts plain English. Examples:
  • Every weekday at 9am
  • Every Friday at 2pm
  • On the first business day of each month at 8am
After you enter a schedule, Office Agent shows the version it understood back to you. If it does not look right, change it before you save the task. Office Agent uses your business timezone. Use the play button when you want the task to run immediately. It does not change the saved schedule or the next scheduled occurrence. Office Agent showing the understood Frequency & Time value

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How to write clear instructions

The clearer you are, the better Office Agent will work for you. Good instructions tell Office Agent:
  • which jobs, lists, or queues to use
  • what outcome you want
  • how many items to process
  • what to avoid
  • whether it should only review or also prepare actions for approval
Good examples:
  • Review up to 5 Action Required jobs and tell me the next best step for each one. Do not make any changes.
  • Review quotes from the last 7 days that still need follow-up and draft customer emails for approval.
  • Check staff availability for the next 3 business days and suggest the best booking windows for urgent work.
Avoid broad instructions like:
  • Help with my jobs.
  • Keep things organised.

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Choose the right tools

Only turn on the tools the task needs. If a task is new, narrow, or review-only, keep the tool list small. For example, if you only want a summary, turn off queue, status, booking, allocation, and email tools. You can always add more tools later once the task is giving you the results you want. Office Agent task tools in the Create New Task modal

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If you need to notify someone

Who to notify is the list of staff who should receive a notification from that task. Use When to notify to tell Office Agent when it should send a notification. If Who to notify is blank, no notification is sent. If When to notify is blank, Office Agent notifies every time the task runs. Notifications follow each person’s normal ServiceM8 notification settings, so they may arrive in-app, by email, or by push. This works best when you only notify people when something needs attention. For example:
  • only notify me when a job needs manual follow-up
  • notify the office manager when no booking slot is available
  • notify me when there are quotes older than 7 days with no follow-up
If you want routine summaries every time the task runs, say that clearly in the notification guidance. If you only want exceptions, define the exception clearly.

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How approvals work

If a task is allowed to make changes, Office Agent can prepare those changes for approval inside the task conversation. For example:
  • sending a customer email
  • updating a queue or status
  • creating a booking or allocation
  • updating the task itself
One task run can prepare more than one action for approval. Office Agent showing multiple pending approval actions in a task conversation Office Agent can help update the task name, instructions, schedule, and notification settings with approval. Office Agent cannot turn the task on or off for you, and tool toggles still need to be changed by a user. Office Agent showing an approved action in the task conversation

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Review every new task before trusting it

Before you rely on a task, check:
  • the schedule is correct
  • the instructions are specific enough
  • only the intended tools are enabled
  • the notification setup matches what you actually want
  • the first few runs produce useful results
The safest pattern is to begin with a narrow task, learn from the early runs, and only then expand the task’s responsibility. If you want a faster starting point, see How to use the Office Agent task library.
Last modified on April 2, 2026