Tasks lets agents create and complete follow-up work and activities using the same interface they use for calls and chats — the Contact Control Panel. Managers can also use workflows to automate tasks that don't require any agent interaction at all. [Source: AWS, Amazon Connect Tasks]
Why Treat Follow-Up Work as a "Contact"?
The insight behind Tasks is simple: a lot of contact centre work isn't a live conversation at all — it's a callback to make, a form to process, a case update to action, an appointment check-in to complete. Treating that work as its own contact type, routed and tracked the same way as a call or chat, means it gets the same visibility, prioritisation, and reporting instead of living in spreadsheets or sticky notes.
How Tasks Get Routed
Amazon Connect Tasks dynamically prioritises and assigns tasks based on:
- Agent skill set — matching the task to an agent with the right expertise
- Availability — routing to agents who have capacity
- Task attributes — type, priority/urgency, and category
Content was rephrased for compliance with licensing restrictions. [Source: AWS, Easily prioritize, assign, track, and automate contact center agent work with Amazon Connect Tasks] This is the same skill-based routing logic used for calls and chats, just applied to work that isn't a live interaction.
Creating a Task
From the CCP, an agent (or a flow) creates a task by completing a Create task form — giving it a name and choosing who it's assigned to. Tasks can only be assigned to a user or queue that has a quick connect configured. Agents can also schedule a task to start at a future date and time, rather than immediately. [Source: AWS, Create a new task in the Contact Control Panel (CCP)]
Who Can Create Tasks
By default, all agents can create tasks. If you want to restrict this, you assign the Restrict task creation permission in the agent's security profile. Self-assignment is a separate, more specific permission: an agent needs Allow self assigning of contacts and must not have task creation restricted, at which point they can check a box when creating a task to assign it directly to themselves. [Source: AWS, Task templates in Connect Customer; AWS, Set up tasks in Amazon Connect]
Task Templates
Like Cases, Tasks supports templates — predefined structures that standardise how tasks of a given type are created, so the same type of follow-up work is captured and tracked consistently across agents rather than ad hoc.
How an Agent Experiences an Assigned Task
Agents handle tasks in the CCP exactly like any other contact. When assigned a task, the agent sees a notification containing the task's description, any associated information, and links to applications they might need to complete it. [Source: AWS, The task channel in Amazon Connect]
How Tasks fits with Cases: Cases tracks the overall customer issue; individual Tasks represent the discrete pieces of follow-up work needed to resolve it. Together they're designed to give a single source of truth for an issue that spans more than one contact.
A Real-World Example
One documented use is medical lab appointment check-in and triage, where Tasks is used to manage the check-in and triage workflow around an appointment rather than requiring a live call for every step. [Source: AWS, Easy medical lab appointment check-in and triage with Amazon Connect Tasks]
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Amazon Connect Tasks?
Tasks is an Amazon Connect channel that lets agents create and complete follow-up work and activities outside of a live customer contact, using the same Contact Control Panel interface they already use for calls and chats. Managers can also use workflows to automate tasks that don't need agent interaction at all.
How does a task get assigned to an agent?
Tasks are dynamically prioritised and assigned based on agent skill set, availability, and attributes of the task itself such as type, priority, or category. They can be assigned to a specific queue or user that has a quick connect configured, or scheduled to begin at a future date and time.
Can agents create tasks for themselves?
Yes, if their security profile allows it. By default all agents can create tasks; administrators can restrict this with the Restrict task creation permission, and self-assignment specifically requires the Allow self assigning of contacts permission alongside Restrict Task Creation being disabled.
How do agents handle a task once it's assigned?
Agents handle tasks in the Contact Control Panel just like any other contact. When a task is assigned, the agent sees a notification with the task description, any associated information, and links to applications they might need to complete it.
Conclusion
Tasks turns the behind-the-scenes follow-up work every contact centre has into something routed, prioritised, and reported on the same as any live contact — rather than tracked outside the system where it's invisible to the rest of the operation. Paired with Cases for issue tracking and the CCP for the actual handling, it closes a gap most contact centre platforms leave to spreadsheets.