Scheduling Prompts That Run Themselves
Set it and forget it. Learn how to schedule Copilot prompts that run automatically — daily summaries, weekly reports, and more — delivered straight to you.
What are scheduled prompts?
Think of scheduled prompts like setting an alarm — but instead of waking you up, it runs a Copilot task.
You tell Copilot: “Every Monday at 8 AM, summarise my unread emails and list today’s meetings.” Then you forget about it. Every Monday morning, Copilot runs the prompt and sends you the results — no clicking, no typing, no remembering.
It’s perfect for tasks you do regularly: daily inbox summaries, weekly team updates, Friday follow-up reminders.
How to schedule a prompt
- Submit your prompt in Copilot Chat (Teams, Outlook, or web)
- Hover over the prompt you just submitted
- Click “Schedule this prompt”
- Configure:
- Start date and time — when should it first run?
- Recurrence — daily, weekly, custom
- Email notifications — get results delivered to your inbox (optional)
- Click Save
Managing scheduled prompts
Find and manage your scheduled prompts:
- In Copilot Chat → click the three-dot menu (…) → Scheduled prompts
- From here you can:
- Edit the schedule (change time, recurrence)
- Run immediately (don’t wait for the next scheduled time)
- Turn off a scheduled prompt (pause without deleting)
- Delete a scheduled prompt entirely
Real-world: Marcus's morning briefing
Marcus at Horizon Logistics scheduled two prompts:
Prompt 1 — Daily morning briefing (8:00 AM weekdays): “Summarise my unread emails and Teams messages from the past 12 hours. List any urgent items first. Then show today’s meetings with attendees and agenda topics. Present as a morning briefing in bullet points.”
Prompt 2 — Weekly ops summary (Friday 4:00 PM): “Summarise the key discussions, decisions, and action items from the Operations channel this week. Highlight any delivery delays or escalations. Format as a brief report for the leadership team.”
Marcus now starts every morning with a ready-made briefing and ends every week with a draft leadership summary. 30 minutes saved daily.
Limits and considerations
| Limit | Detail |
|---|---|
| Max scheduled prompts | Up to 10 per user |
| Max runs per prompt | Up to 15 (depends on org configuration) |
| Recurrence options | Daily, weekly, custom |
| Email notifications | Optional — results delivered to inbox |
| Admin control | Can be disabled via cloud policy (“optional connected experiences”) |
| Data freshness | Prompt runs against your CURRENT data at execution time — not cached results |
| Feature | Saved Prompt | Scheduled Prompt |
|---|---|---|
| How it runs | You click to run it manually | Runs automatically at scheduled times |
| Results delivered | In your current Copilot conversation | In Copilot Chat + optional email notification |
| Data used | Current data at time you run it | Current data at scheduled execution time |
| Best for | On-demand tasks you do sometimes | Recurring tasks you do every day/week |
When to schedule vs when to just save
| Use Case | Save or Schedule? |
|---|---|
| ”I run this report every Monday” | Schedule |
| ”I use this prompt a few times a month” | Save |
| ”I need a morning email summary every day” | Schedule |
| ”I sometimes need to compare two documents” | Save |
| ”My team needs Friday highlights every week” | Schedule (then share the results) |
🎬 Video walkthrough
Flashcards
Knowledge Check
Dana at Oakfield Healthcare wants Copilot to send her a summary of new employee onboarding tasks every Monday morning at 9 AM. She's already written the perfect prompt. What should she do?
Marcus has reached the limit of 10 scheduled prompts and wants to add 2 new ones. Two prompts are for reports he no longer needs. What should Marcus do?
Next up: You’ve mastered creating, saving, sharing, and scheduling prompts. Now learn how to manage the conversations those prompts create — finding, renaming, deleting, and organising your chat history.