Scheduled Monitoring: Set It Once, Run Forever

You've built the perfect scraping workflow. It extracts exactly what you need, writes to a clean Google Sheet, handles pagination flawlessly.

Now imagine running that workflow automatically—every hour, every day, every week—without lifting a finger.

Scheduled Monitoring is here. And it changes everything about continuous data collection.

Watch It In Action

Before we dive into the details, see scheduled monitoring working in real-time:

[Video: Scheduled Monitoring Demo]

The Problem: Manual Repetition

Every data professional knows this pain:

• Price trackers need to run the same scrape daily to catch changes
• Job seekers want to monitor listings across multiple boards continuously
• Researchers need to track news or regulatory updates as they happen
• Sales teams want fresh competitor data in their CRM every morning

The old way? Set a reminder, open your laptop, trigger the workflow manually, wait for completion, repeat tomorrow.

The new way? Schedule once. The agent handles the rest.

How Scheduled Monitoring Works

1. Run a Workflow Successfully

First, execute any workflow in rtrvr.ai—whether through the Chrome Extension or Cloud Platform. This becomes your "template":

"Go to news.ycombinator.com and extract the top 30 stories 
with titles, URLs, scores, and comment counts. 
Write results to a Google Sheet."

Once this runs successfully, you've proven the workflow works. Now you can automate it.

2. Schedule the Workflow

Click the "Schedule" button on any successful execution. You'll see the Schedule Configuration panel:

Frequency Options:

• Run Once – Execute at a specific date/time
• Every X Minutes – For real-time monitoring (price alerts, stock trackers)
• Every X Hours – For regular updates (news aggregation, job listings)
• Every X Days – For periodic reports (weekly competitor analysis)

Start Time: Set when the first run should occur. Leave empty to start at the next interval.

3. Configure Execution Behavior

This is where the magic happens. Two powerful options make scheduled monitoring actually practical:

Tab Reuse: Never Re-Sign In Again

Here's a frustrating reality: many valuable data sources require authentication. LinkedIn, banking portals, internal tools, subscription services—all behind logins.

Cloud-based automation typically fails here because it can't access your authenticated sessions. But your browser already has those sessions.

Tab Reuse Mode solves this:

Tab Execution Mode: "Reuse matching open tabs when possible"

When enabled:

1. Before the scheduled run, rtrvr.ai checks if matching tabs are already open
2. If found, it uses those tabs (with your logged-in sessions intact)
3. No re-authentication needed—ever

Perfect for:

• LinkedIn monitoring (aggressive bot detection)
• Banking and financial portals
• Internal company tools
• Subscription-based data sources
• Sites with CAPTCHAs or rate limits

Pro Tip: Keep your target site open in a pinned tab. The scheduled agent will find it and use your existing session every time.

Auto-Append to Sheets: Build Your Master Tracker

The second game-changer: Sheet Output Configuration.

Traditional scraping creates a new output file each run. You end up with:

• competitors_jan_15.csv
• competitors_jan_16.csv
• competitors_jan_17.csv
• ...and a mess of files to consolidate

Auto-Append mode changes this:

Sheet Output: "Append to same sheet on each run"

Now every scheduled run adds new rows to the same Google Sheet. Over time, you build a comprehensive historical dataset:

What you can do with this:

• Track price trends over weeks/months
• Identify inventory patterns
• Spot when competitors change strategies
• Build datasets for analysis and reporting
• Feed into dashboards and visualizations

Real-World Use Cases

1. Job Market Monitoring

Setup:

Prompt: "Extract all ML Engineer jobs from LinkedIn Jobs, 
        filter by San Francisco, posted in last 24 hours.
        Include company, title, salary range, and apply link."
        
Frequency: Every 6 hours
Tab Reuse: Enabled (stay logged into LinkedIn)
Sheet Mode: Append to same sheet

Result: A continuously growing spreadsheet of fresh job listings. Never miss an opportunity because you forgot to check.

2. Competitor Price Tracking

Setup:

Prompt: "Visit these 5 competitor product pages and extract 
        current pricing, any discounts, and stock status."
        
URLs: [competitor1.com/product, competitor2.com/product, ...]
Frequency: Every hour
Sheet Mode: Append to same sheet

Result: Real-time price intelligence. Get alerted (via notifications) when competitors drop prices or run out of stock.

3. News & Regulatory Monitoring

Setup:

Prompt: "Check SEC EDGAR for any new 8-K filings from 
        these 10 companies. Extract filing type, date, 
        and summary."
        
Frequency: Every 4 hours
Sheet Mode: Append to same sheet
Notifications: Slack webhook

Result: Automated compliance monitoring with instant Slack alerts when filings appear.

4. Social Media Tracking

Setup:

Prompt: "Extract the latest 20 posts from this Twitter/X 
        account. Include post text, engagement metrics, 
        and timestamp."
        
Frequency: Daily at 9 AM
Tab Reuse: Enabled (logged into Twitter)
Sheet Mode: Append to same sheet

Result: Historical record of competitor or influencer activity over time.

5. Inventory & Availability Monitoring

Setup:

Prompt: "Check if these 15 products are in stock across 
        Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. Extract price 
        and availability for each."
        
Frequency: Every 30 minutes
Sheet Mode: Append to same sheet
Notifications: Email when specific product becomes available

Result: Never miss a restock. Get notified the moment that PS5 or GPU is available.

Multi-Step Workflow Scheduling

For complex automations, schedule entire multi-step workflows:

Example: End-to-End Lead Research

Step 1: Scrape company list from industry directory
Step 2: For each company, visit website and extract contact info
Step 3: Enrich with LinkedIn data
Step 4: Write final leads to master CRM sheet

Schedule this once, and fresh leads appear in your CRM every morning—fully enriched and ready for outreach.

Each step can have its own configuration:

• Step 1: New tabs (scraping public directory)
• Step 2-3: Reuse tabs (staying logged into LinkedIn)
• Step 4: Append to existing master sheet

Notifications: Know When Runs Complete

Don't just hope your schedule ran—get notified:

Supported Channels:

• 📧 Email – Simple completion notifications
• 💬 Slack – Post to any channel via webhook
• 🎮 Discord – Webhook integration for gaming/community teams
• 📱 WhatsApp – Mobile notifications via linked number

Configure in the Notifications tab when setting up your schedule.

Example Slack notification:

✅ Schedule "Daily Competitor Prices" completed
   • 47 new rows added to tracking sheet
   • 3 price changes detected
   • View results: [Sheet Link]

Browser vs. Cloud Execution

Important: Scheduled tasks run in your Chrome browser, using your logged-in sessions.

What this means:

• Tasks execute while your browser is open
• If your browser is closed at scheduled time, the task runs when you reopen Chrome
• Your authenticated sessions are used (that's the superpower)
• No credential sharing with cloud servers

For 24/7 execution (even when your laptop is closed):

• Export workflows to rtrvr.ai Cloud
• Cloud uses headless browsers (no authenticated sessions)
• Perfect for public data at scale

Configuration Best Practices

1. Test Before Scheduling

Always run the workflow manually first. Confirm it:

• Completes successfully
• Extracts the right data
• Writes to Sheet correctly
• Handles edge cases (pagination, popups, etc.)

2. Set Realistic Frequencies

• Price monitoring: 30 min - 2 hours
• News/content: 4-6 hours
• Job listings: 6-12 hours
• Weekly reports: 7 days

More frequent ≠ better. Respect rate limits and your own credit usage.

3. Use Tab Reuse for Authenticated Sites

If the site requires login:

1. Open the site in a tab
2. Log in manually once
3. Enable "Reuse matching open tabs"
4. Keep that tab open (pin it)

The agent will find and use your session every time.

4. Design Sheets for Append Mode

When building workflows that will use auto-append:

• Include a Date/Timestamp column
• Use consistent column headers
• Consider adding a Run ID for grouping

This makes historical analysis much easier.

5. Set Up Notifications

Even if you don't need them now, configure at least one notification channel. When schedules run unattended for weeks, you'll want confirmation they're still working.

Managing Your Schedules

Access all schedules from the Schedules dropdown in the side panel:

• View all active and paused schedules
• Edit configuration (frequency, tabs, sheets, notifications)
• Pause/Resume without deleting
• Delete schedules you no longer need
• View History of past executions

What's Next: Cloud Scheduling

We're working on Cloud Scheduling for users who need:

• 24/7 execution without keeping browser open
• Higher frequency monitoring
• Massive parallelization
• Enterprise-grade reliability

Join the waitlist at rtrvr.ai/cloud for early access.

Get Started Today

1. Update your Chrome Extension to the latest version
2. Run a workflow you want to automate
3. Click "Schedule" on the successful result
4. Configure frequency, tab reuse, and sheet append settings
5. Set notifications (optional but recommended)
6. Save and let rtrvr.ai handle the rest

Your first scheduled monitoring workflow is just a few clicks away.

Additional Resources

• Full Documentation on Schedules
• Privacy & Security Brief
• Join Discord Community
• Contact Support

Stop manually repeating workflows. Start building continuous data pipelines.

Scheduled Monitoring is available now in the rtrvr.ai Chrome Extension.

Happy Automating!
The rtrvr.ai Team