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Automation

The part of the day you should not be doing

Confirmation mail on arrival, three follow-ups when nobody picks up, hand-over when the record is ready. You build it once in a flow you can read, and afterwards you only look when something got stuck.

  • Seven triggers, sixteen steps, branches and waits
  • A later step reads what an earlier one got back from your API
  • A step without an implementation cannot be selected
  • Every run keeps its frozen input and its raw output
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Triggers

Seven ways a flow starts

An automation hangs on the stage it acts on and is opened from that stage — not in a separate area where you would have to remember what it belongs to. What starts it is one of seven things that happen to a record.

  • Record created, field changed — the two that cover most of what people build first
  • Stage entered and stage left — the hand-over and the walk-back, as separate events
  • Idle in stage — nobody touched this for four days — the trigger nobody builds by hand
  • Date reached, and by hand — a deadline, or a person deciding it is time
Runs
Record enters “Qualified” · 7 steps
Run 8841 · Marie Kernertoday, 09:14 · 1.2 s · stuck at step 3
Filterhas_email4 ms
Distribute to partnershandover840 ms
Call external systemenrichretry 2 of 3

504 from https://api.example.com/score — retrying in 15 minutes

Input
{
  "postcode": "53111",
  "roof_area": 128
}
Output
—
Send emailconfirmationqueued
Run 8840 · Pia Lindqvisttoday, 09:02 · 0.9 s · all steps done
Steps

Sixteen steps, and none of them pretend

Mail, webhook, document, branch, wait, assignment, a change of stage, a calculation, straight into distribution. A step whose implementation does not exist yet appears in the catalogue as “coming” and cannot be selected — so nothing reports a success it did not have.

  • Branches — first match or every match, with an else that is a real path
  • Waits — a delay, or a wait for an event that may never come
  • Step output chaining — a later step reads what an earlier one got back from your API
  • Only once per record — “the deadline has passed” is just as true tomorrow
Runs

What actually happened, step by step

The run inspector is not a by-product. The question about an automation is almost always “what happened?” — so every step keeps the input it was frozen with and the raw output it got back, and a filter shows only the runs that got stuck.

  • Status and duration per step — including the ones that are still waiting
  • Frozen input, raw output — not a summary of what the system thinks happened
  • Retries you can see — attempt two of three, and when the third is due
  • Only stuck — one switch, because that is the list you actually open
The barrier

An unpaid module cannot run through the back door

The module check runs before every step of an automation, not when the automation is saved. That is the only level that also catches a flow built while a module was still booked — the gap that a “feature flag” approach leaves open.

  • Checked before each step — not at save time, when the answer was still yes
  • An expired booking acts like none — a chargeback takes effect now, not at period end
  • Closed by default — no rows means nothing is allowed, rather than everything
  • Written down as a test — three behaviours, fixed in `access.test.ts`

Questions people ask

If the answer you need is not here, the help center has the long version.

Open the help center
Do I need the CRM module to use automation?
No. Automation acts on records, and records belong to the core. What the CRM adds is the stage — so triggers like “stage entered” need it, while “record created”, “field changed”, “date reached” and “idle” do not.
Can an automation call my own system?
Yes, with the webhook step. It runs inside the flow rather than beside it, so the next step can read the answer with a reference to the earlier step's output.
What happens when a step fails?
It is retried on a fixed schedule and then stops, and the run shows the attempt count and the raw error. A stopped run stays in the list under “only stuck” until someone deals with it — it does not disappear.
Is there an SMS step?
It is registered but has no implementation yet, so it appears in the catalogue as coming and cannot be selected. We would rather show you an honest gap than a step that reports success and sends nothing.

Bring the month you would rather not talk about

Set up your own entity, your own fields and one routing rule, and see what it does with a record you put through it.

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