Scheduled tasks

What a scheduled task is

A scheduled task is an instruction Haruno carries out on its own at times you set, such as every weekday at 18:00. Each run is a conversation that starts without you, works in the secure sandbox, and leaves a result you read afterward. A task reads, searches, summarizes and drafts. An email, a reply, an invitation with guests, a Discord post or a shared-folder change that it prepares waits in Waiting until you approve it. A task is never given Slack or a custom server (What a task can't use). A task can't close, reopen or lock a month, or approve a mapping.

Open the Scheduled screen with ⌘5. Its list starts with Sync QuickBooks, a task Haruno carries itself. Settings and some messages call scheduled tasks automations. Each run of your own tasks draws on your plan's allowance like a chat of the same length, so a frequent schedule adds up: Every 2 hours is 12 runs a day. Importing files and closing a month draw nothing, but the questions for management drafted after a close do. Tasks and their runs stay on the Mac where you created them, not shared with teammates or your other computers.

Create a task

Click + on the Scheduled screen, fill in the New Scheduled Task sheet and click Turn it on. A new task starts as every day at 09:00, Read and reply only, with emails, invitations, Discord posts and cloud changes held for you.

1. Type a Name, and under What Haruno should do, write the job the way you would brief a colleague who cannot reach you. AI Optimize expands the text into a detailed prompt; Undo restores yours.
2. Under When, choose a schedule from Start it and set its day and time. The sentence under HERE'S WHAT WILL HAPPEN restates it.
3. Under What it's allowed to do, keep Read and reply only unless the task needs files, and leave “Let this automation send emails, invitations and cloud changes on its own” off.
4. Click Turn it on, then Try it… before you rely on it.

Turn it on stays unavailable until the task has a name, instructions, a folder if it works in one, and a valid custom schedule.

Under Advanced, Continue the same conversation makes each run carry on from the last, so the task knows what it already reported. Some captions on the sheet speak of a message that arrived; a scheduled task has none (its pane's badge reads Nothing to watch), so say in the instructions what to read.

Schedule options

Start it offers Every day, Every weekday (Monday to Friday, public holidays included), Every week, Every month (days 1 to 28, so it runs in every month) and Every few hours (every 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 or 12 hours counted from midnight, so Every 6 hours runs at 00:00, 06:00, 12:00 and 18:00). At offers 08:00, 09:00, 12:00, 16:00 and 18:00; for another time, such as 07:30, use On a custom schedule…, where Next runs previews the coming times. A custom Monthly schedule on days 29 to 31 does not run in months without that day. A saved schedule that none of the Repeat choices can express shows as Custom and keeps running as saved until you pick one. There is no “last day of the month” choice today.

Where a task works

Each task works in one place on your Mac and sees nothing else there. Both choices can read your connected accounts and the web, but neither is given Slack or a custom server.

Writing the instructions

• Make them complete: the people, addresses, files and period, what to produce, where it goes, and what to do when there is nothing to report. Nobody can answer a question during a run, so a missing detail becomes a guess.
• Keep each run to one job that fits in 30 minutes.
• Check the figures in anything a task drafts against the close's reports before you send it on.

Try it before you rely on it

Try it… opens Try it without sending anything; click Run it now there. A try does the same job as a scheduled run and is listed in Runs as A try — nothing was sent. It holds emails, invitations, Discord posts and cloud changes even for a task allowed to send on its own, but files in its folder still change, and it uses your allowance. A task that continues its conversation treats what the try reported as already reported. Run it now in the pane itself is a real run. If the try prepared something, click Show it in Waiting (the sheet may say Activity; it means Waiting).

Change, pause, copy or delete a task

When tasks run

A task runs at its scheduled times, in your Mac's local time, only while Haruno is open. Runs take turns, one at a time, and every run happens in the secure sandbox, even in the Advanced view with Sandboxed Engine turned off.

Keeping Haruno running

Keep Run in the background on (the default), so closing the window leaves Haruno in the menu bar while a task is turned on, and turn on Launch at login, so a restart does not stop your tasks. The first is in Settings ▸ General ▸ Automations, which only the Advanced view shows; the second is in Settings ▸ General, in both views.

What a run can reach

A run has its own folder or none, your connected accounts other than Slack and custom servers, web search and public pages; other network access reaches only the sites the secure sandbox allows. Nobody is there, so every request is approved automatically, and for the connectors Waiting covers, the hold takes the place of their confirmations. A question gets an empty answer; a run that then prepares nothing is recorded as “It needed an answer and nobody was there.” A run does not use Haruno's memory, so put what it needs in its instructions. Like a chat, it sends what it reads and writes to Inferara's hosted service and the model provider. More: approvals in scheduled runs and what a conversation sends.

Reading what a run did

A run's result is in its notification, the task's pane and the run's own conversation. Runs under the pane lists every run, filtered by All, Needs you or Problems; open one for Try again, Open conversation or Copy details, which copies the run's facts for a message to support. A run that failed or was stopped shows Didn't finish and why. Runs keeps up to 2,000 runs per task, dropping the oldest. Anything a run prepared gets its own notification, even with Notify when an automation runs off.

Waiting for approval

When a task prepares an email or a reply, an invitation with guests, a Discord post or changes to a shared cloud folder, it does not send it. It leaves the item in Waiting, where you send, edit or discard it. Send waits 10 seconds with an Undo button before anything goes out.

What waits and what happens at once

The rule is who finds out. Acts only you see, and can undo, happen during the run; acts other people would receive are held.

With Haruno's built-in Google app, Gmail can send mail and manage labels but cannot read, search, reply to or trash mail. See Connectors and Your organization's Google app.

Open Waiting

Waiting is a sheet on the Scheduled screen. Open it with Review on the “N things waiting for you” bar or in a task's pane, Review what it prepared on a run, or the item's notification. Nothing there expires; deleting a task deletes what it left.

Review and send an item

1. Read the first line: who would receive the item. For a reply, Gmail adds everyone already on the thread.
2. To change an email, reply or invitation, click Edit, then Save.
3. Click the send button, named for the act, such as Send the invitation, or click Discard.

RECENTLY HANDLED keeps what you dealt with for seven days, with Undo on a discarded item and the reason on “Didn't send · …”. Discarding held cloud-folder changes asks first; it moves the files the task added or changed to the Trash, reverts your copy of the folder to what is in the cloud, and cannot be undone.

Letting a task send on its own

“Let this automation send emails, invitations and cloud changes on its own” removes the review step for one task. The sheet warns: “Messages and file changes go out while you're away, without your review. They can't be recalled.” and “It also stops asking you to confirm Gmail sends for this automation.” Leave it off for anything that goes to a company, an investor or a lender.

What a task can't use

A task is never given Slack, or a custom server added in the Advanced view: it can't read or post there, not in a scheduled run, not in a try and not when it may send on its own. Waiting can't hold an action on one of those servers for your review, so tasks are left without them. Your chats still use them, so to post in Slack or work through a custom server, ask in a chat. See Slack and custom servers.

If a Discord post can't be held, a task that must wait for you posts nothing. A connector whose saved sign-in is rejected is left out of new chats and runs for up to 24 hours, or until you sign in to it again.

Sync QuickBooks

Sync QuickBooks is a task Haruno carries itself. It heads the list on the Scheduled screen, can be turned off but not deleted, and is off until you turn it on. Then it fetches the new and changed months of every company in your portfolio that is connected to QuickBooks, every day at 06:00 until you change that. It only files months: it never closes, reviews or restates one, so close them when you are ready. It runs no prompt, so it uses none of your allowance (What uses the allowance) and holds nothing in Waiting. While your allowance cannot pay, its fetch is refused and tried again later. To connect a company, see QuickBooks Online.

Edit sets the schedule: Every day, Monday to Friday, Every week (on a day of the week), Every month or Every quarter (on a day from 1 to 28, or the Last day), at a time on this Mac's clock. A quarter runs in January, April, July and October. Saving never syncs on the spot; the first run is the next scheduled time. Fetch now fetches every company straight away, whether the task is on or off.

It runs only while Haruno is open. With Run in the background on, closing the window keeps Haruno in the menu bar while the task is on and has a company to sync. A time missed while Haruno was closed, or the Mac asleep or offline, runs once when it can, not once per missed time.

Email me a summary after scheduled syncs (in the pane and in Settings ▸ Books) is off by default and kept for your account. While it is on, how each scheduled sync ended, and the months it brought in, goes to Inferara's service for the email, never with an amount. Fetch now and a sync you press send no summary. Turning it off withdraws summaries not yet emailed.

Ideas for a finance practice

Scheduled tasks suit the routine reading, drafting and chasing around a close. They don't close: you run the close yourself, from the Portfolio or a company's page (Closing the month).

Ask each company for the month's exports

Every month, On day 2, At 09:00; Read and reply only; Gmail connected (the built-in Google app is enough). You get one email per company in Waiting, to read and send. Adjust the reports to what each company sends. The built-in app can't read your inbox, so the task can't tell who has already replied: discard the emails you don't need.

Write one email to each contact below asking for last month's QuickBooks Online exports once the month's books are final: the Balance Sheet as of the last day of the month, and the Profit and Loss for the month with the month as its own column, both on an accrual basis and exported to Excel. Put the month and the company name in the subject. Keep each email under six sentences and sign it <your name>.

Northgate Analytics: Priya Raman, priya@northgate.example
Lakeside Robotics: Tom Ellis, tom@lakeside.example

Draft monthly commentary from saved reports

Every month, On day 8, At 08:00; Work in this folder too, with a folder you keep for this. After the close, export each company's statements or investor report there with Export…, which saves a PDF and a web page. The task sees only those files, not a company's findings or books: check that each shows the months you need (Before you send a PDF), and check every figure it drafts. For questions that need the findings, ask from the company's page.

Read the reports saved as PDFs in this folder this month. For each company, draft three short paragraphs of commentary for its monthly investor update: revenue and gross margin against the prior month, operating expenses, and cash. Quote figures exactly as they appear in the PDF and name the month. Save all of it as one document in this folder, named Commentary and this month's name.

Messages you may see

More: While it downloads, Scheduled tasks at the limit, Pricing and Troubleshooting.

On Windows

The Windows app has no Waiting queue: an action set to Confirm, such as sending an email, is refused during a run. A missed time is not run later, and a running task has a Stop button. There is no Sync QuickBooks task; a QuickBooks company's ⋯ menu has Sync schedule… instead, and a missed scheduled sync runs once when Haruno is next open and online. See Scheduled tasks and hooks on Windows.