Automations and buttons
Automations that run set actions when a condition is met, and button blocks that run actions when pressed.
An automation moves by itself when something happens in a database; a button moves when someone presses it. Both use the same list of actions.
Making an automation
- Press Automations (자동화) at the top of the database and choose New automation.
- Under When, pick a trigger.
- When an item is added
- When a property is edited: pick a condition from when edited, when equal to, when not equal to, when containing, when empty and when populated.
- On a schedule: daily, weekly or monthly at a Run time. A schedule cannot be combined with other triggers.
- With several triggers, combine them with When any trigger occurs or When an event occurs and all conditions match.
- Narrow the Target items to All database items or to the entries in a particular view.
- Add actions under Then and Save.
Turn automations on and off, edit and delete them from the list. Run history shows what ran when and which entry started it. An automation that keeps failing turns itself off and shows its last error.
Filtered scheduled rules select all matching entries when an occurrence starts and process that snapshot in batches. A restart resumes unfinished work; newly matching entries wait for the next occurrence. An entry moved, deleted or no longer accessible is recorded as skipped. Pausing and resuming keeps progress. Changing the conditions, actions or run-as user cancels the remaining work and records the cancellation. Action failures remain visible; five consecutive failures pause the rule. A scheduled run that reaches the hourly email limit is not counted as failing: it waits until every email one entry sends fits, then resumes from that entry. If the rule cannot run at all (the person it runs as can no longer open the database, or its view was deleted), the rest of the occurrence is cancelled, recorded with how many entries it left, and counted as one failure. Any other error keeps the progress, is tried again a minute later, and counts toward the five. The per-action Edit pages limit still applies.
The editor separates triggers from individual action steps. Expand Text field placeholders: under the action list to see the supported syntax.
Actions
An automation or a button holds up to 20 actions, run from the top down. When Send notification, Send email or Send webhook fails, the failure is recorded and the next action runs; the run is shown as Partially succeeded. Event rules and buttons do not wait at the hourly email limit: their Send email is recorded as failed in this way. When any other action fails, the run stops there and the actions after it do not run.
| Action | Does |
|---|---|
| Edit this item's properties | Changes the triggering entry's values: to a value, by a formula, or to a number of days from today |
| Edit items | Changes the values of entries that match conditions, in another database or the same one |
| Add item | Makes a new entry in the target database |
| Send notification | An Inbox notification to members or to the people in a person property |
| Send email | Email to addresses or people. The server needs mail sending set up. |
| Send webhook | A change notification to an https address. The signing secret is shown once, right after saving. |
| Define variables | Names values for later actions to use |
| Ask for confirmation · Insert blocks · Open page or address | Buttons only. Show the presser a confirmation, insert blocks into the page, or open a page or address. |
Text fields take placeholders: {{title}} title (“Untitled” in notifications and emails when there is none), {{prop:Property name}} a property's value, {{actor}} the person running it, {{today}} today, {{url}} link, {{var:name}} a variable, {{= formula }} a calculation. A notification message or email subject that comes out empty is replaced with Notification from automation “name”.
Placeholders are checked when you save. An unclosed {{, an unknown name (such as {{titel}}), a property this database does not have, or a variable no earlier Define variables action defines is shown under its field, and the automation or button is not saved. If a property is renamed or deleted after saving, its placeholder comes out empty and the run history names it under Properties not found for that action. The action and the run are still recorded as succeeded. You can still turn the automation on or off or rename it; fix the placeholder when you next edit its actions.
Permissions and cautions
- Automations are made and changed by people with Manage permission on the database.
- An automation runs with the permissions of whoever saved it and leaves alone any entry that person cannot open. When someone else edits and saves it, it runs with theirs.
- Changes made by an automation do not start other automations. Entries made by template recurrence do not start automations either.
- If the template an Add page uses holds a database, that database is copied after the run ends. While it is copied, the run log's Add page step reads In progress; the result is added when the copy ends. If the copy fails, the step turns to failed with the reason. A rule's failures in a row are counted once the copy ends. Each rule copies with sample rows up to 20 times an hour; beyond that, or with more than 200 copies waiting, the databases come as their structure only. See Databases inside a template.
Button blocks
- Insert /button in a page body.
- In the block handle (⋮⋮) menu, open Button settings and set the Button name and actions.
- Pressing the button runs the actions in order, and Recent runs keeps the results.
- Only people who can edit the page can press a button, and it runs with the presser's permissions.
- A button inside a database entry can change that entry's values with Edit this item's properties.
- Values a button changes can be picked up by automations.