Steps and actions overview
An automation is built from steps of two kinds: actions that do work, such as sending an email, updating entries, or calling an AI model, and flow steps that shape the run, such as conditions, loops, and delays. Every automation has exactly one starting step, and the connections between steps decide the order.
An automation is built from steps of two kinds: actions that do work, such as sending an email, updating entries, or calling an AI model, and flow steps that shape the run, such as conditions, loops, and delays. Every automation has exactly one starting step, and the connections between steps decide the order.
Requirements
A role that can edit automations. For the steps to add a step, see Create and activate an automation.
Actions
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Send email | Sends from a connected mailbox, using a template or a subject and body set on the step, to recipients from a collection, a field on the entry, fixed addresses, an earlier step, or a user. Needs a daily cap and a per-mailbox cap, each from 1 to 50. |
| Create entry | Creates an entry in a chosen collection. |
| Update entry | Changes fields on the triggering entry, a chosen entry, or entries found by a query or saved filter. |
| Read entries | Fetches entries for later steps to use. |
| Set stage | Moves entries to a stage. |
| Create entry link | Links two entries with a typed link. |
| Webhook | Calls an outside address, with the method, headers, and body you set. |
| AI step | Sends a prompt to a connected AI model and returns text, an email, or values for fields. See Add an AI step to an automation. |
| Create collection from template | Creates a new collection from an existing one. |
| Assign conversation | Gives an inbox conversation to a person. |
| Set conversation priority | Low, normal, high, or urgent. |
| Set conversation status | Open, snoozed, or closed. |
Flow steps
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Condition | Checks one or more conditions and sends the run down the true or false branch, or stops it. |
| Switch | Sends the run down one of several named cases, based on a value. |
| Loop | Repeats the steps inside it for each item in a list, such as each entry read earlier. |
| Delay | Waits before the next step. |
| Transform | Sets a variable or reshapes a value, such as formatting a date. |
| Sub-automation | Runs another automation, and can wait for it to finish. |
Using one step's output in another
Each step records what it did, and later steps can use it: the id of an entry a step created, the entries a step read, the subject an AI step wrote. That is how an AI-written email reaches the send step, or a new entry gets linked to the one that triggered the run.
Notes and limitations
- Branches that rejoin can hang. A condition sends the run down one branch. If both branches lead back into a shared step, that step waits for a branch that never comes. To skip one step when a condition is false, put the condition on the step itself.
- Retries can be set only on webhook, create entry, create entry link, update entry, and set stage, and not on steps inside a loop.
- Sending caps are required on every send-email step, and allowed on no other step.
- Test first. A dry run simulates every step that would change something and saves nothing; a test run is saved so you can inspect it.
Related
For what starts an automation, see Automation triggers; for the concepts, Agents and automations from first principles.