Learn the lingo

Every automation has a trigger, a condition, and an action (or multiple!).

Show me the definitions for these

• Trigger: an event you choose which sets the automation into motion.
• Condition: a requirement that the trigger must meet in order for the automation to work.
• Action: an event that occurs as a result of the trigger and condition being met.

To further understand triggers, conditions, and actions, let's look at an example of a recipe: "When a status changes to something, then archive item".

In this case, the trigger is "When a status changes". The condition is "to something" (in our case, we chose the "No longer relevant" status label) and the action is "archive item".    

With this automation in place, every time an items' Status Column is given the "No longer relevant" label, that item will be automatically archived!

Note: To learn more about automation actions and how it affects pricing, check out the Automation and Integration Actions article.

Add an automation

When adding an automation, you'll have the option to customize your own recipe or to choose from a pre-set automation recipe (we'll show this later on!). To begin adding a custom automation, click to access the Automations Center and then select "Create custom automation" as so:

Now time to customize it! 🎉

Step 1: Choose a trigger

The first step in building your automation is to click on "When this happens" to pick a trigger. You can then choose a trigger from the options presented in the dropdown or by clicking "More options". A trigger can be a column from your board (i.e. Status, People, Date, etc.) or an action/event (i.e. item created, every time period, etc.):

In the example above, we've chosen the trigger to be a Status Column changing to something. Now, it's time to select the condition for this trigger!

Step 2: Select a condition

Depending on the trigger you've picked in step one, you will then need to select a condition. In this example, we want to trigger an action when the Status Column titled "Contract" changes to "Signed".

To do this, we've clicked into the underlined fields and selected the Status Column with the name "Contract" and then we've chosen the label "Signed" as so:

Note: The labels displayed correspond to the labels of the Status Column selected from your board.

If you'd like to specify additional conditions in your recipe, simply click on the plus sign next to the condition that you set and choose another one! As an example, we've added another condition of "if person is someone". 

Now, the automation will only be set in motion if "Contract" changes to "Signed" and if the sales rep is assigned to Noy! 💥

Step 3: Set an action

Now that the first part of our automation (trigger + condition) is ready, it is time to pick an action for it! To choose an action, click on the grey "Then do this" field. From here, you can select an action from the options presented in the dropdown or by clicking on "More options".  

For our automation, we chose the "notify someone" action, as below:

Now it is time to finalize the selected action! To customize the exact action that will occur, click into the underlined field(s). In our case, we'll use the "notify" field to customize the notification message that will be sent, and then we'll choose who will receive this automatic notification by clicking into the "someone" field!

And voila, our automation is now ready! By selecting the blue "Create Automation" button, the automation is now good to go. With this in place, every time that the "Contract" Status Column is given the "Signed" label, the Sales manager will instantly receive a notification about it. 🎉

Tip:  You can add multiple different actions onto your automation recipe! We'll go over how this can be done shortly. 

Multi-step automations

If you're looking to create longer and more complex automation flows, you can add multiple different actions onto a single automation recipe! To do this, simply click on the plus sign to the right of the action you already set, choose the additional action, and then fill out the underlined fields.

You can continue adding more and more actions to a single recipe, as you'd wish!

• Status change
• Recurring tasks
• Date reminders
• Item creation  
• Move item (within a board) 
• Cross-board 
• Subitems
• Dependencies 
• Custom recipes 

Time-based automations

You may be wondering how time-based automations work. For example, in the "date" field in the following recipe: When date arrives, notify someone.

The same time-based automation will run at different times for different users if they have different time zones configured in their desktop settings. Meaning, if your “When” in the aforementioned recipe is set to 9 am, New York City users will be notified at 9 am EST and Tel Aviv users will be notified at 9 am IDT.

As mentioned, time-based automations will run on your local desktop’s time zone. However, if your time zone settings under My Profile are extremely different than your local time zone (more than a few hours), you may see an issue. If this is the case for you and it is essential that these two settings are different, please reach out to our support team right here and explain a bit about your use case so that we can pass on feedback about this to our team!

Note: If you are using a recipe that states "When date passed..." the automation will trigger on midnight of that day.

Supported columns 

The below column types are currently not supported in the "notify" field of a notification automation:

• Formula
• Auto Number
• Progress
• Dependency
• Connect Boards

The below column types are currently not supported in any automations, including in the mapping of an item:          

• Tags
• Mirror
• Dropdown
• Time Tracking
• Dependency
• Link to Item
• Location
• World Clock
• Phone
• File
• Week
• Link
• Country
• Team
• Vote

Note: For security purposes, all columns with column viewing restrictions will not be supported in automation and integration recipes.

Delete an automation

No longer need an automation on your board? An automation recipe can easily be deleted from your board through the Automation Centre. Click on "Board automations" from the top panel of the Automation centre. From the list of board automations that appear, click on the three dots to the right of the recipe you would like to delete, and select "Delete Automation" from the drop-down menu. 

Note: Deleted automations cannot be restored, and would need to be recreated. To deactivate the automation without permanently deleting it, use the toggle to the right of the automation, and select "Off".  

 

• Trigger rate limit:
  There are limitations on the number of times a single recipe can trigger per minute. When these limits are hit, a bell notification will be sent to the recipe creator as well as the recipe in question will be disabled.

• Action rate limit:
  There are limitations on the number of of actions that can run on a single recipe per minute. When these limits are hit, a bell notification will be sent to the recipe creator and not all actions will run.