Ferndesk
Audits and automation

Scheduled audits

Scheduled audits automatically review your help center on a recurring schedule. Fern analyzes support signals, search gaps, article feedback, and recent product changes to identify documentation gaps and outdated content.

What scheduled audits do

When you enable scheduled audits, Fern runs a comprehensive review of your help center at the interval you choose. Each audit checks:

  • Support signals — Patterns from your connected support tools, such as recurring questions or high-friction support threads

  • Search gaps — Queries where customers searched your help center but didn't find relevant results

  • Article feedback — Reader feedback indicating content that needs improvement

  • Recent product changes — Commits, pull requests, and releases from your connected codebase that may require documentation updates

After each audit, Fern generates recommendations that appear as tasks in your Fern thread list. You can review the findings and ask Fern to draft updates for any gaps she identifies.

Scheduled audits complement the automatic PR drafts feature. Use both together to keep your documentation in sync with product changes.

Enable scheduled audits

Configure scheduled audits from the Automations settings page.

1

Navigate to Settings > Automations

From your dashboard, click Settings in the left sidebar, then select Automations.

You'll see two automation options: Automatic PR drafts and Scheduled audits.

2

Toggle on Scheduled audits

Click the Scheduled audits toggle to enable recurring audits.

Fern will display a confirmation toast: Scheduled audits enabled.

3

Choose your audit frequency

After enabling scheduled audits, a Frequency selector appears below the toggle. Choose how often Fern should run audits:

  • Weekly — Fern audits your help center every week

  • Every 2 weeks — Fern audits every two weeks

  • Monthly — Fern audits once per month

Fern will confirm your selection with a toast: Audit frequency updated.

Review audit results

When a scheduled audit completes, the results appear in your Fern thread list. Navigate to the Fern page to see audit tasks alongside your other documentation work.

Each audit finding includes:

  • A description of the documentation gap or outdated content

  • Evidence from support tickets, search data, feedback, or codebase changes

  • Actions you can take, such as drafting an update with Fern or dismissing the finding

Click any audit task to see the full details and evidence behind Fern's recommendation. From there, you can ask Fern to draft the necessary updates.

Disable scheduled audits

To stop recurring audits, return to Settings > Automations and toggle off Scheduled audits. Fern will stop running scheduled reviews, but existing audit tasks remain in your thread list until you address or dismiss them.

Next steps

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