Save your first task as a procedure and reuse it

This guide picks up with Morning Brief, the news assistant from Hire Your First Employee. By the end, the briefing style you liked once is saved as a procedure, and next time you only swap the material (keywords, time period) and get the same steps again. Takes about 5 minutes.

A procedure is a record of what the employee takes in and the order it works through for a given job. Once it’s saved, you don’t have to explain the job from scratch every time, and results vary less from run to run. The idea is also covered in Core Concepts.

Prerequisites

• An employee you’ve taken through Step 4 of Hire Your First Employee (e.g. Morning Brief)
• At least one result received from that employee

Step 1: Get a first result

In the employee’s main chat, ask for the work as usual.

Show me today's news briefing.

Once the employee delivers an organized result and wraps up that piece of work, a row like this appears right under its last message.

Save how this was done, and next time you only swap the material and it runs in the same order.

Draft a save request Not now

This row appears the same way on web and in the latest iOS and Android apps (for older app versions, see What’s different in the mobile apps). It doesn’t appear when the turn wasn’t delivering a result (a greeting or Work setup, for example), or for a one-off errand. If you don’t see it, you can do the same thing from the Procedures panel below.

Step 2: Send the save request

1. Press Draft a save request.

2. Your chat composer fills with a sentence like this. The name in quotes is the name the employee gave this job.

   Please save how you do "AI and chip news briefing" as a procedure.

   If you already had text in the composer, a “You have unsent text in the chat box” dialog asks first. Press Replace to swap your text for the draft.

3. Nothing is saved yet. The row says so too: “A save request is drafted in the chat box. Saving starts once you send it, and it shows here when confirmed.” Feel free to edit the sentence (e.g. “and make including source links one of the steps”).

4. Press Send. The employee turns the steps it just followed into a procedure and saves it.

5. Once the save is actually confirmed, the same spot changes to this:

   Saved the “AI and chip news briefing” method

   Takes: keywords of interest, time period

   Steps: search recent news per keyword → pick the top 5 → one-line summaries → one trend line for today

   Run again with new material View details Dismiss

   What appears under Takes and Steps is whatever the employee wrote down. The content above is only an example.

Not now and Dismiss only clear the row on this device. They aren’t recorded as turning the save down, so if you change your mind you can save it from the Procedures panel at any time.

Step 3: Run it again with new material

Now hand it different keywords and a different period, and ask for the same steps.

1. Press Run again with new material.

2. Your composer fills with the sentence below, and a “Run saved job: AI and chip news briefing” chip appears just above the composer.

   Please do "AI and chip news briefing" again the saved way. Material to use this time: 

3. Add this run’s material at the end. You can attach files too.

   Please do "AI and chip news briefing" again the saved way. Material to use this time: keywords are EV batteries and electric cars, period is the last 3 days

4. Send it. The employee follows the saved steps with the new material.

Worth knowing:

• The chip applies to one sent message only. After you send, the chip clears and your next message is ordinary chat again.
• If you don’t want the saved steps this time, remove the chip with its close button before sending. The message then goes out as a normal one.
• No marker stays in the chat after sending. To confirm the saved steps were used, check the places in Step 4.
• The saved summary row under a result only appears right after saving and for a job that has only been done once. After that, use Run again in the Procedures panel.

Step 4: Check the result

• Chat: the result arrives as a new message, as usual. Check that the keywords and period match the material you gave this time, and that the steps (5 items, one-line summaries, one trend line) match what you saved.
• Procedures panel: this job’s card shows how many times it’s been done and its steps in order. If you don’t like the steps, change them yourself here or through chat. See the Procedures panel notes in Working Across Workspaces.
• Run history: press the Run history button just above the composer. This run is in the list, and View in chat takes you straight to where it started in the conversation.

If the result isn’t what you expected, just say so in chat. For example: “Make the summaries two lines and update the procedure to match.”

Step 5: Run it on a schedule (optional)

If the material is the same every time, you can put the saved job on a scheduled run.

1. Open the saved job in the Procedures panel.

2. In the Reuse this method row, press Set up a scheduled run.

3. Your composer fills with the sentence below. Add the frequency at the end and send it.

   Please create a scheduled run that runs "AI and chip news briefing" the saved way on a regular basis. Frequency: weekdays at 8 AM

If a scheduled run is already linked to this procedure, the button reads View scheduled run instead, and pressing it opens your scheduled runs rather than creating a new one. A scheduled run you created before saving the procedure, like the daily morning run from Step 3 of Hire Your First Employee, may not be linked to this procedure. To avoid doing the same work twice, check your existing scheduled runs in the Automatic runs tab before adding a new one. For times, limits and other details, see Setting Up Scheduled Runs.

Save from the Procedures panel

If you closed or missed the row under a result, everything the employee has learned is gathered in the Procedures panel.

• Where to open it: on web, Procedures in the ⋯ menu at the top right of the screen (the Procedures button in the row above the composer goes to the same place); in the iOS and Android apps, Procedures in the employee screen’s menu.
• When it’s empty: you’ll see “Nothing learned yet. Finish a piece of work and it shows up here.” along with Give a first task examples. Picking one fills the composer with a draft; the work starts only when you send it.
• A job not saved yet: press Draft a save request on its card to fill the composer with the same sentence as in Step 2, and the card says “Request drafted. Saving starts once you send it in chat.” Once you send it and the save is confirmed, “Saved as a procedure” appears with an Open button.
• A saved job: open its card, and a Reuse this method row sits near the top.
  • Run again: fills the composer with the same sentence as in Step 3.
  • Set up a scheduled run (or View scheduled run if one exists): same as Step 5.
  • As the hint says, “This fills in a request in the chat box. It runs when you send it.” Pressing a button on its own runs nothing.
• In a personal space: the saved job screen notes “Company publishing is for letting coworkers request this from a form. You don’t need it to reuse this yourself.” You can ignore publishing if you only reuse the job yourself.

Pick by what you want to do

Separately, Try as a sample, which lets you test a saved job once with files attached, is web only.

Save work the team splits up

When you hand work to a team, the team lead splits it among teammates. Work that was split up and finished this way is saved as a team procedure from the team task list in team chat.

1. In the team task list, find a finished top-level task (the thing you first asked for).
2. Press Save as team procedure under it. The button is there from the very first completion. Once the same shape of work has come up several times, the button is highlighted, but you can press it before that.
3. Unlike a personal employee, there’s no draft: it saves the moment you press it. A “Saved this order as a team procedure.” notice pops up, and the spot shows “Saved” with View saved procedures, which takes you to the saved procedures list described below.

Saved procedures collect under Saved procedures at the top of the team task list, and Run starts one right away with the same steps. If there are none yet, you’ll see “No saved procedures yet. Press “Save as team procedure” under finished split work to run it again from here.” If the team has never been given any work, on web you can start with the Give the team a first task examples.

A task that can’t be saved has no button. The first two reasons below are always shown in the button’s place; the other three appear only after the same shape of work has repeated enough (so the board doesn’t fill up with notes under every task finished solo):

• “Already saved as a team procedure”
• “This procedure is locked and can’t be changed”
• “Nothing was split among teammates, so there’s no team procedure to save”: work one employee handled start to finish, without splitting it into sub-tasks, doesn’t become a team procedure.
• “No step has an assignee, so it can’t be saved”
• “No step was completed, so it can’t be saved”

For more on the team task list and running saved procedures, see Building Teams of AI Employees.

Try it as a sample with files (web)

If a saved job has Takes (inputs), opening it in the Procedures panel on web and going to the Inputs tab shows a form. For a job that hasn’t been published for your company yet, you can fill in the values and press Try as a sample.

A job saved through chat often has no inputs yet, even if your save request said something like “take one weekly sales CSV file as input”. If the Inputs tab says “Nothing is asked for yet.”, press Ask to set what it collects or tell the employee directly. The employee offers a confirmation card, and once you apply it the form appears in the Inputs tab. If the employee replies that applying it failed, ask once more. If a panel that was already open doesn’t show it right away, refresh.

• As the notice says, “Not published yet, so this runs as a normal chat without review or checks.” The values are sent straight away as a chat message and follow this job’s saved steps. Unlike the other buttons, there’s no drafting step in the composer.
• If there’s a file field: “Files you choose are attached to the chat message and sent with it.” Files upload the moment you press the button, showing “Uploading files…” meanwhile.
• If you move to another screen or another job mid-upload, the files already uploaded are removed and nothing is sent.
• If the upload fails, you’ll see “The files could not be uploaded, so nothing was sent. Try again.” and no message goes out.

Let coworkers request it from a form (company publishing, web)

To let coworkers run this job themselves from a form on the work portal, you need to publish it. You don’t need to publish to run it again yourself or to set up a scheduled run.

Publishing needs three things:

1. An organization space: you can’t publish from a personal space.
2. An open work portal: the organization’s work portal has to be open.
3. The organization owner role: only the organization owner can publish.

If anything is missing, the Publish tab in the Procedures panel lists it under What publishing needs.

• In a personal space: Explore organization space conversion takes you to the conversion card in Settings > Subscription. For how to convert, see “Convert to an organization space yourself with Pro” in Handing Work Over (Managed Service).
• Still told it’s a personal space after converting: that employee is in your personal space. An employee hired right after converting can end up there. Move the employee into the organization column in the employee table on the Home screen, and you can publish.
• If the work portal isn’t open yet: ask the organization owner or your UpServe contact to open it.
• If you aren’t the organization owner: ask the owner to publish this job.

Even with all three in place, the Publish tab may show a Fix these first list. Procedures saved through chat are often missing things publishing needs, such as inputs, links between steps, and each step’s output. Tell the employee “Fix what’s blocking publishing” and it will revise the procedure; once the list is empty, Publish becomes available.

Running a published form

Once a job is published, the form in the Inputs tab becomes Run with this form.

1. Fill in the values and press Run. You’ll see “Submitted.”
2. You’re also told where the results go. If a destination is set, “Results go to (destination).”; if not, “Results are not sent anywhere. Open them from the recent runs below.”
3. The Recent runs list below refreshes by itself while a run is in progress. After a while it shows “Stopped refreshing automatically.” with a Refresh button.
4. Each run gets a link that fits its status: View result, Go to confirm, See why it failed, or View progress. Delivery status per channel, such as email or Slack (sent, sending, not sent), is shown alongside.

What’s different in the mobile apps

• The same: the save row under a result, the Procedures panel (drafting a save request, Run again, Set up a scheduled run), saving a team procedure and running saved procedures all work in the latest iOS and Android apps just as on web.
• Older app versions: there’s no save row under a result and no Run saved job chip, the Procedures screen has no Reuse this method row, and Save as team procedure only appears after the same shape of work has repeated several times. Update the app or continue on the web.
• Web only: company publishing, running a published form, Try as a sample, and the Give the team a first task examples shown when the team task list is empty. The apps’ Procedures screen shows What publishing needs with the same wording, but switching from a personal space to an organization space happens outside the app (on the web).
• View details on the row under a result: on web it opens the Procedures panel; in the apps it opens that task’s detail screen directly.
• The Run saved job chip: if you fully close the app and reopen it, the chip may be gone (Android). Press Run again with new material or Run again again to re-attach it before sending.

Advanced

You don’t need any of this for everyday use. It’s here if you want to know why the save row does or doesn’t show up.

When the save row under a result appears

• It appears only when the employee has delivered a result and wrapped up that piece of work. It doesn’t guess from the wording of a message; it checks whether the employee closed the work as delivered. Turns that only greet, announce a start, or ask for material, Work setup, and one-off errands don’t get it.
• It attaches only to a personal employee’s main chat. It doesn’t appear in workspaces, team chat, or the manager’s chat.
• It disappears 24 hours after the work was wrapped up.
• If you rated the job’s previous result 👎 (needs fix), it doesn’t appear. It’s offered again once you give a later result a 👍. An unrated result alone won’t bring it back.
• A job you answered “Not this one” to in the ring gauge’s list never comes back, neither in this row nor on the ring. That decision is stored on the server.
• Not now and Dismiss are recorded only on this device (on web, this browser). The row can still show on other devices, and it isn’t treated as declining the save.

How “saved” is decided

• Pressing a button, filling a draft, or sending a message doesn’t make “Saved” appear on its own. The row switches to saved only after the employee has actually saved the procedure and it shows up in the list.
• The saved summary (Takes, Steps) comes from the saved procedure’s input items and step titles. If there are no separate input items, the names of the materials the employee noted are used instead.
• The saved summary and Run again with new material under a result only appear for a job you just saved from this row, or for one saved but done only once so far. The count comes from the server’s record, so every device reaches the same answer.

How Run again uses the saved procedure

• The “Run saved job” chip ties one next sent message to that procedure. It doesn’t guess the job from the sentence; the message carries a separate reference to which procedure to use.
• When you send, the server checks again that the job is still one of this employee’s saved procedures. If it has been deleted or was never saved, the reference is quietly dropped and the message is handled as ordinary chat.
• On web, the chip survives a page refresh along with the composer draft, but it’s cleared when you sign out or switch accounts.
• Try as a sample is tied to its procedure the same way.

Conditions for saving a team procedure

• The top-level task must be finished, with subtasks split among teammates beneath it, including ones with an assignee and ones finished all the way.
• It isn’t saved if a team procedure already exists for the same kind of work, or if the procedure is locked.
• When the same shape of work has come in several times recently, the button is highlighted with a “Recent runs of this kind of work: N” hint. Whether it can be saved still depends only on the conditions above.