Automation

The recipe catalogue

There are 168 recipes in the marketplace, grouped into seven categories. This page is a tour of what each category is for, with the sentences you will reach for most.

CategoryRecipesFor
Field updates42Writing one column when another changes
Alerts37Telling someone that something happened
Thresholds33Acting when a number crosses a line
Dates17Stamping when something happened
Routing13Moving rows to where they belong
Assignment13Deciding who owns a record
Multi-step12Doing more than one thing at once
The automation marketplace browsing the Assignment category, with recipe sentences listed and a search box above them
Browsing the marketplace by category.

Assignment

Who owns the record. Usually the first automation any team sets up.

a row is createdassign creator as owner
Whoever added the row owns it. Right for a sales team entering their own leads.

a row is createdauto assign as owner
Round-robin across the team. Right for a support queue or inbound leads, where fairness matters more than who typed it.

category changes to somethingauto assign as owner
Route by category. Combined with category keywords, this is automatic ticket routing.

status changes to somethingauto assign as owner
Hand off at a stage boundary — an escalated ticket goes to whoever is next on the senior rota.

Alerts

The largest group after field updates, because almost any column change is worth telling someone about. There is a notify owner recipe for every column type:

  • status changes
  • dropdown changes
  • category changes
  • owner changes
  • checkbox is checked or unchecked
  • text changes
  • email changes
  • phone changes
  • number changes
  • date changes
  • datetime changes
  • time changes
  • formula changes
  • connect changes
  • attachment changes

Alerts can notify in-app, email the owner, or send an email to an address on the row — which is how a customer gets told their ticket was resolved.

Be sparing. A notification on every column change trains people to ignore all of them. Alert on the two or three transitions that actually need a human to look.

Field updates

The biggest category: one column changing writes another. This is how a panel keeps itself consistent without anyone remembering to.

a row is createdset status to something
Every new row starts at the right stage — New, Unassigned, To do.

category changes to somethingset status to something
Filing a ticket into a category also moves it out of triage.

checkbox is checked or uncheckedset status to something
Ticking “approved” moves the record to the approved stage.

status changes to somethingset checkbox to something
The reverse: reaching a stage sets the flag other views filter on.

Dates

Timestamps you would otherwise ask people to fill in by hand — and they would forget.

a row is createdset date to today
A created-on date without a column anyone has to touch.

a row is createdset datetime to now
On a ticketing panel, point this at Start Date and the resolution clock starts by itself.

status changes to somethingset datetime to now
Stamp exactly when a ticket was resolved, or a deal was won. This is what makes duration reporting possible later.

Thresholds

Acting when a number crosses a line, with the full set of comparisons on both Number and Decimal Number columns.

number is greater than valuenotify owner
A deal over a size worth a second pair of eyes.

number is greater than valuemove row to mapped
Large orders route themselves into an approvals panel.

number equals to valuenotify owner
A countdown reaching zero, a stock level hitting its reorder point.

Routing

Moving rows to where they belong, using a Mapping column to name the destination panel and section.

status changes to somethingmove row to mapped
A lead marked Won moves into the Customers panel; a ticket marked Closed moves into Archive.

dropdown changes to somethingmove row to mapped
A request classified as “Facilities” moves into the Facilities panel.

Routing needs a Mapping column on the panel, with its target panel and section set. Without one there is nowhere for the row to go.

Multi-step

One trigger, several actions. Rather than three separate rules on the same event, a multi-step recipe keeps them together so they cannot drift apart.

A typical one: when status changes to Resolved → set the resolved datetime, notify the owner, and email the customer — as a single automation.

Choosing well

A workspace that runs smoothly usually has these four, and not many more:

  1. Something that assigns an owner on creation.
  2. Something that sets the starting status on creation.
  3. Something that stamps the time at the stages you report on.
  4. One or two alerts on the transitions that genuinely need a human.