There are two fundamentally different ways an automated system can know it's time to act: check periodically, or get notified the instant something happens.
Scheduled automation checks for changes at fixed intervals — creating a built-in delay. Event-driven automation reacts the instant something happens — no waiting, no delay.
Polling a system every minute "just in case" can generate millions of wasted checks a month for an app with infrequent events — event-driven automation eliminates that waste entirely.
Notifying a team the moment a customer submits a support request: scheduled automation might check every 15 minutes; event-driven automation fires the instant the form is submitted.
Webhooks are the most common mechanism enabling this — one system automatically sends a message to another the moment a specific event occurs.
NOXEL Forge processes new submissions the instant they arrive — real event-driven automation, not a scheduled check.
Scheduled (or "polling") automation, which checks for changes at fixed intervals rather than reacting instantly.
Not always — for tasks that don't need instant reaction, like a daily summary report, scheduled automation is simpler and sufficient.
Webhooks are the most common mechanism — a system automatically sends a notification the instant something happens.
It can require more upfront setup, since the sending system needs to support webhooks, but many modern tools support this natively.
Yes — many systems use event-driven automation for urgent triggers and scheduled automation for periodic summaries or batch tasks.
Generally yes — it avoids the wasted repeated checks that polling requires, reacting only when something actually happens.
See real event-driven processing, not a scheduled check.
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