Scheduled Scans: Automate Your Audits

I manage accessibility and performance audits for about a dozen client sites. Before I set up scheduled scans, my workflow looked like this: remember to check sites, forget, something breaks, client emails me, I panic-audit everything at once. It was not a great system.

The SCOUTb2 PRO scheduled scan feature fixed that. Here's how I use it and why it's become one of those things I genuinely couldn't work without.

How It Works

In the extension settings, you pick a frequency: daily, weekly, or monthly. You set the time. SCOUTb2 uses the browser's scheduling API to trigger the scan on schedule.

Important limitation: Because SCOUTb2 is a browser extension, scheduled scans require the browser to be open and running. If the browser is closed at the scheduled time, the scan will fire the next time the browser opens. This is not a server-side monitoring service; scans run locally in your browser session.

The browser does need to be running for the scan to fire.

When the scan finishes, you get a browser notification with the score summary. If you've configured email notifications, you also get a score report in your inbox. Quick glance, everything's green, move on with your day.

If the browser happens to be closed when a scheduled scan was supposed to run, it fires automatically the next time you open the browser. Missed scans don't just disappear; they run on the next available opportunity. That matters more than you'd think, because the moment you rely on automation is usually the moment your laptop happens to be in a bag all week.

Why This Is Particularly Good for Agencies

With a dozen client sites, running manual audits weekly would eat up a significant chunk of time. With scheduled scans, I set each site up once and then I'm mostly out of the loop unless something changes. The scan runs. If scores drop, I find out. If everything's fine, I don't have to do anything.

Monthly scheduled scans are good for stable, low-change sites where you mostly want to know if something has regressed. Weekly is better for sites that deploy frequently or have a lot of dynamic content. Daily is there if you're in active development or managing something where a short-lived issue could matter a lot.

The report history feature keeps the last 100 audits, so when a client asks "has this been getting better or worse?" I actually have an answer. I can point to specific dates and scores instead of shrugging and saying I'll check into it.

Setup Takes About Two Minutes

Open the SCOUTb2 extension. Go to settings. Find the scheduling section. Set your frequency, set your preferred time, toggle email notifications if you want them. That's it. The extension handles the rest. No cron jobs, no server configuration, no webhook integrations.

It's the kind of feature that sounds small until you realize it's running in the background on its own schedule and you haven't manually kicked off an audit in three weeks. Then it feels very large.

If you're managing multiple sites and currently running audits whenever you happen to remember, the PRO plan is worth it for this feature alone. The multi-page scanning (up to 10,000 pages per scan), AI insights, and full export options are also in there, but honestly, the scheduled scans are what I'd miss most.

Set it up once. Let it run. Get on with your life.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, professional, or compliance advice. SCOUTb2 is an automated scanning tool that helps identify common issues but does not guarantee full compliance with any standard or regulation.