Understanding Tasks
What tasks are in Buyer24, the different ways they appear, what their statuses mean, and when you need to act on one.
What a Task Is
A task is a single piece of work one of your agents does for you — researching a market, drafting an RFQ, following up with a supplier, setting up your workspace, and so on. Each task shows up as a card so you can see exactly what's happening, follow it while it runs, and review the result when it's done.
Tasks are how Buyer24 keeps its work visible and under your control. Nothing important happens silently in the background — it happens as a task you can watch, stop, or review.
Every task lives on the Tasks page in the Assistant sidebar. A task you started from a chat also appears on its card in that chat and in the chat's Activity panel. Each card shows the task's name, a short description of what it's doing, and its current status.
Where Tasks Come From
Tasks don't only appear when you ask for them. There are four common ways a task shows up, and it's normal to see tasks you didn't create by hand:
- You ask an agent in chat. When you ask for something that involves real work — "research suppliers for anodized brackets," "draft a follow-up to the supplier who went quiet" — the assistant proposes a task. See Your AI Assistant.
- An incoming email creates one. When a request arrives by email — for example, you or a customer forwards an enquiry, or send one to your intake address — Buyer24 turns it into a task that drafts the RFQ for you. See Starting an RFQ by Email and Forwarding Emails to RFQs.
- Autopilot creates one. If you've turned on RFQ Autopilot, Buyer24 schedules tasks to chase silent suppliers and handle routine replies on your active RFQs. See RFQ Autopilot & Reminders.
- Setup creates them. When you first set up your workspace, Buyer24 runs a short series of setup tasks — researching your company, drafting a procurement brief, suggesting templates. Your home page shows its progress until it finishes, then opens the assistant with the results.
So if you open Buyer24 and see a task you don't recognize, it usually means an email came in, autopilot did its job, or onboarding is still finishing up. The task card always describes what it is and what it produced.
Task Statuses
Every task has a status that tells you where it is:
| Status | What it means | Do you need to do anything? |
|---|---|---|
| Queued | Waiting its turn — typically to run during the nightly cycle. | No. It will run on schedule. You can run it now or remove it if you'd like. |
| Running | Working right now. A live log shows its progress. | No, just watch — or stop it if you want to cancel. A stopped task is refunded. |
| Needs your answer | The task hit a question only you can answer and is paused, waiting for you. | Yes. Click Answer, reply, and the task picks up where it left off. |
| Scheduled | A recurring task (like a regular summary) waiting for its next run time. | No. It re-runs itself on its schedule. |
| Completed | Finished. The result is ready to review. | Review the result. Some tasks produce something you act on next (a draft to send, a shortlist to pick from). |
| Failed | Something went wrong and it couldn't finish. | Check the task's log for why. You can ask the assistant to try again. Failed runs are refunded. |
A completed task isn't always the end of the story. For example, a "research suppliers" task finishes by producing a shortlist — you then review it and tell Buyer24 which suppliers to actually add. The task did the legwork; the decision stays yours.
When a Task Asks You a Question
Sometimes a task needs something from you partway through — a missing quantity, a choice between two options, a detail only you know. Instead of guessing, it pauses with the status Needs your answer and tells you:
- with an in-app alert, a browser notification, and an email — each linking straight to the task;
- on its card in the chat it came from;
- at the top of the Tasks page and in your Needs you list.
Click Answer in any of those places — on the chat card, in the task's details, on the Tasks page, or from your to-dos — type your reply, and send it. The task continues from where it stopped, with everything it had already done. Typing into the chat itself doesn't answer the task; use the Answer button.
If you'd rather not answer, stop the task: it's cancelled and its credits are refunded.
The Tasks Page
The Tasks page shows everything your agents are doing or scheduled to do, including tasks created from chat. You can view it three ways:
- By status — Needs your answer first, then Running, Queued, Scheduled, Completed, and Failed.
- By agent — the same tasks grouped by the agent doing the work.
- Templates — ready-made recurring tasks (a morning briefing, a weekly RFQ review, a supplier watch, and more) you can start from.
From there you can reorder what's waiting, run a queued task immediately, stop a running one, remove one you no longer need, or set a task to recur on a schedule. Tasks started from a chat show which chat they came from.
Tip: Ask the assistant "what's in my task queue?" any time. It will list everything pending and let you manage it in plain language.
Artifacts: What Your Tasks Produced
Everything a task produces — documents, RFQs, orders, websites — is kept as an artifact, so you don't have to dig through task logs to find it:
- In a chat, the Activity panel's Artifacts section lists everything that chat's tasks produced, newest first.
- On the Tasks page, the Artifacts tab lists everything across your organization, grouped by chat and filterable by kind.
Click any artifact to open it — a document in the viewer, an RFQ on its page, a website in the website workspace, an order in the order view next to its chat.
When Do You Need to Act on a Task?
Most tasks run on their own and simply leave a result for you to review. You only need to act in a few situations:
- A task is proposed and waiting for you. In a chat set to Ask (the default), a proposed task doesn't run until you choose Execute Now (runs immediately) or Add to Queue (runs in the nightly cycle). In a chat set to Auto, the proposed task starts on its own. See Your AI Assistant.
- A task asks you a question. Its status reads Needs your answer — click Answer and it continues.
- A completed task hands you a decision. A shortlist to pick from, a draft RFQ to review and send, suggested templates to approve. The card points you to the next step.
- A task failed. Open its log to see why, then ask the assistant to retry if appropriate.
Everything else — autopilot follow-ups, the work that runs overnight, intake drafts — you can simply review at your convenience. Whether anything goes out to a supplier without you is decided by your organization's automation level; if it asks for approval before sending, a task stops at a draft for you to approve. See RFQ Autopilot & Reminders.
FAQ
Why am I seeing a task I didn't create?
It was almost certainly created for you — by an incoming or forwarded email becoming an RFQ draft, by autopilot following up on an active RFQ, or by the setup tasks that run when your workspace is first created. The card describes exactly what it is.
Do tasks cost credits?
A task run by a paid agent uses credits at that agent's fixed price, paid before it starts; it's never cut off halfway, and failed or stopped runs are refunded. Paid plans include one free task per day from the nightly queue, and setup tasks during onboarding are free. See Pricing.
Can a task send an email or change my data without me?
A task only starts without your click in a chat set to Auto, or when it comes from autopilot, email intake, or setup. Once running, it can make the changes it described — create an RFQ, update a record. Emails to suppliers follow your organization's automation level: if it requires approval before sending, the task stops at a draft for you to approve.
A task failed — what do I do?
Open the task to read its log, which explains what went wrong. In most cases you can ask the assistant to run it again. You aren't charged for the failed run.
How do I stop a task?
Click Stop on a running or waiting task. It stops, and its credits are refunded.
Where do I find my tasks?
On the Tasks page in the Assistant sidebar — and, for tasks you started in a chat, on their cards in that chat and in its Activity panel.