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Building an automation

Build an automation on the visual canvas and publish it when it is ready.

Available on the Business plan.

Admins only, on the Business plan.

Start in the editor

Every automation is built in a visual editor: a canvas that shows your trigger and each step as connected blocks, in the order they run.

  1. Go to Automations in the sidebar.
  2. Click Create Automation. A blank automation opens in the editor.
  3. Name the automation in the top bar, and add a description if it helps.

Pick a trigger

The trigger decides when your automation runs. There are four types: Status changes, Record created, Record updated, and On a schedule.

  1. Choose the trigger type.
  2. For record triggers, pick which kind of record to watch: clients, projects, quotes, invoices, or tasks.
  3. Add Entry criteria if the automation should only fire when the record also matches certain conditions.

Add and configure steps

Steps are the work your automation does. Every connection on the canvas shows a plus button; click it to insert a step at that exact point in the flow.

  1. Click the plus on the connection where the new step should go.
  2. Pick a step from the picker. Steps are grouped by what they do: logic, records, communication, utilities, and flow.
  3. Configure the step in the panel that opens. Each step type has its own options, like which record to update or what an email should say.
  4. Repeat until the flow does everything you want. See Triggers and actions for the full catalog.
Inserting a step from the plus button on a connection

Save, then publish

Save in the top bar stores your work as a draft. Nothing runs yet. Whenever your draft differs from what is live, a floating banner appears on the canvas with a publish button: Publish workflow the first time, Publish changes after that.

  1. Click Save to store the draft.
  2. Test it first. See Testing and run history.
  3. Click Publish workflow when you are ready. The automation goes live and starts running on its trigger.
Building and publishing an automation from start to finish

The Resources and Debug tabs

A collapsible drawer on the right side of the editor holds two tabs: Resources and Debug. The Debug tab is where you run safe test runs against real data and review what each step did, covered in Testing and run history.

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