Automate actions with rules

May not be enabled

Automation may not be turned on for your workspace or plan. If you don't see it, contact your workspace admin.

An automation rule reacts to something that happens in your workspace and runs one or more actions in response — for example, assign every new high-priority work order to a duty manager, or notify a vendor when their insurance expires.

Every rule reads as one sentence: When an event happens, if some conditions match, then do these actions. That summary is shown on each row of the desk and at the bottom of the builder, so you can always see what a rule does at a glance.

Who can manage rules

Owners and admins can create, edit, test and archive rules. Managers get a read-only desk — they can open rules and view run history but cannot change anything. Technicians, members and viewers do not see automation at all.

Create a rule

1. Go to Settings → Automation.
2. Choose New rule.
3. Give it a name and, optionally, a description.
4. Pick a trigger under When this happens — see Triggers.
5. Add any conditions under If these conditions match. Leave this empty to fire on every matching event.
6. Add one or more actions under Do this — see Actions. Actions run top to bottom, in order.
7. Optionally open Advanced to set a rate limit or emitted events.
8. Save rule.

New rules are enabled by default. Use the switch on each row to turn a rule on or off without deleting it.

Triggers

A trigger is the event a rule listens for. Triggers are grouped by what they act on:

• Work orders — created, assigned, status changed, resolved, closed, cost logged.
• Maintenance requests — submitted, under review, promoted, rejected, merged.
• Meters — reading recorded, threshold crossed.
• Parts & inventory — below reorder point, received, stockout.
• Assets — status changed, warranty expiring, health changed.
• Certifications — expiring soon, expired.
• Vendors — suspended, insurance expired.
• SLA — breach imminent, breached.
• Approvals — requested, granted, rejected.
• Workflow — a status transition on any record type.

Each rule has exactly one trigger. Changing the trigger clears the conditions, because the fields you can test against come from the trigger.

Note

The triggers actually offered depend on your plan and on what is switched on for your workspace. Anything not yet available appears greyed out with the feature it needs, and cannot be selected.

Conditions

Conditions narrow down when a rule fires. Each condition is a field, an operator and a value — for example, “Priority is HIGH” or “Cost is over 500,000”. The available fields come from the trigger you chose, and the operators offered depend on the field’s type.

• All conditions must match. Conditions are joined with AND — there is no OR. If you need OR, create a second rule.
• No conditions means the rule fires on every matching event.

Actions

Actions are what the rule does when it fires. A rule needs at least one, and they run in the order listed — reorder or remove them from the action list. The available actions are:

• Assign — to a specific person or to a role.
• Set priority — Low, Medium, High or Urgent.
• Transition status — move the record to a workflow status.
• Add label / Remove label.
• Apply template.
• Request approval — against an approval policy.
• Notify — email, SMS, WhatsApp, in-app or push, to a person, a role, the requester, the assignee or the reporter.
• Comment — add an internal note.
• Create work order — optionally from a template, location or asset.

Note

Some actions require a higher plan and appear locked with the plan they need; webhook actions are not available yet. A Transition status action still obeys that status’s transition rules — required fields, reason and roles — so a move the workflow does not allow is rejected. A Notify action follows each recipient’s own notification preferences and quiet hours.

Test a rule before it goes live

If your plan includes it, open a rule’s Test panel to dry-run it against a sample event. The test shows whether the conditions matched and which actions would run — no changes are made to any record.

Note

Rule testing is available on Pro plans and above.

Watch what a rule does

Open Runs on any rule to see its run history for the last 90 days. Each run shows an outcome:

• Matched / Completed — the rule fired and its actions ran.
• Conditions not met — the event arrived but the conditions did not match.
• Rate limited — dropped because the rule was over its per-hour limit.
• Loop guard — dropped because a cascade of rules ran too deep.
• Error — an action failed.

Within a run, each action reports Done, Skipped or Failed, so you can see exactly why a rule did or did not do what you expected.

Manage rules

• Filter the desk by trigger, by enabled or disabled status, or search by name.
• Duplicate a rule to start a new one from an existing setup.
• Archive a rule from its menu. It stops firing immediately. Preset rules can be archived too, and can be re-seeded later.
• Rate limit a busy rule from Advanced to cap how many times it fires per hour; 0 means no limit.

Note

Your plan sets how many rules can be active at once. When you reach the limit, New rule is disabled until you archive a rule or upgrade.