Automate routine work

Automations do routine work for you: alerts, reports, messages to your ERP and proposals for your approvers. Each one reads as a sentence, so anyone can tell what it does:

When a certificate expires in 30 days, notify auditors.

Automations never approve anything. What they propose waits for a person, and nothing runs until an owner or admin publishes it.

When, If, Then

• When: what starts it, grouped in the trigger list as in the menu. A lot is registered, delivered, processed or changes status; a certificate is added, withdrawn or expiring; an approval is requested, decided or has waited too long; a delivery waits or fails; a report is ready, signed or recorded on the ledger; a party, site or product is added or changed; a person is invited or a member joins or leaves; a message arrives from another system; a support request changes; a lot rule stops an operation; A number crosses a value; or a Schedule.
• Only if: the conditions that must hold, such as "the product is …" or "the receiver's country is in the EU". Continue when all, any or none of them hold. When they do not hold, the automation stops quietly.
• Then: what it does: Notify in the console, E-mail members, Propose a status change, Propose a certificate, Propose a lot rule setting, Record with an add-on, Generate a report or Send a message to another system.
• Choose one runs only the first case that matches, with an Otherwise. Parallel paths run at the same time, each with its own condition. A branching step ends its sequence, and branches go two levels deep at most.

Build it on the canvas

1. Open Automations and select New automation, or start from Templates with Use template.
2. The canvas draws the flow from top to bottom. Select a step to edit its settings in the pane on the right.
3. Select + between two steps, or Add a step, to add an action or a branch. The pane offers only what fits there.
4. Reads as above the canvas shows the whole sentence. Read every branch lists one sentence per branch.
5. Fix what the issues list shows ("2 things to fix before publishing"). Selecting an issue takes you to its step.

Use Fit to view to see the whole flow, or switch from Canvas to List for a plain outline.

Ask for a review before a step

Some steps should not go ahead without a person looking first. In the step's settings on the canvas in Automations, turn on Ask an owner or admin before this step.

• When a run reaches that step, its sequence pauses and the run shows Waiting for review. Owners and admins are notified once; other paths of the run go on meanwhile.
• In Runs, an owner or admin selects Continue. An owner, admin or operator can select Stop.
• Nobody decides within 72 hours: the sequence stops by itself. A stopped sequence ends the run as Cancelled or Partially succeeded, never Failed.

A test run says that the step would wait, and does not wait.

Repeat a step for each lot

A step that proposes something can run once for every lot its trigger names. In the step's settings in Automations, set Do it to For each lot it names (after Report signed or another report trigger), or For each lot it used or For each lot it made (after a processing).

• Inside the step, "the lot" is each of those lots, with its own fields and unit.
• Each lot gets one proposal, never two, for at most 50 lots a run; a run with more is refused whole.
• One lot that fails does not stop the others. The run lists each lot with its proposal, or why it failed ("3 of 4 lots done").

Calculate a value

Record with an add-on can fill a value with A calculation: Take a lot quantity, Read in a unit such as tonnes, multiply or divide By a number or a company value, and Round. The form works an example out as you type ("1,200 kg → 1.2 t × 0.12 = 0.144 t CO₂e") and warns when a lot that small would fail. The run and the approval show How the values were computed. See Company values and calculations.

Drafts and test runs

Save draft keeps your work without running it. In Automations, select Test…, pick a Lot or edit the Sample event, and select Run test. Conditions and branches are evaluated for real; actions are only simulated. The result is drawn on the canvas: "Test result: nothing was sent or changed."

Who switches it on

Operators create drafts, test them and pause them. Owners and admins Publish it from Automations: a summary lists what the automation will do, where it sends messages and which proposals it prepares ("still needs approval by an owner or admin"), then asks for the authenticator code. Once published it shows On. Use Pause, Resume or Archive in the list.

In Settings › Automations the owner chooses who can approve what automations propose, and owners and admins can Halt all automations at once.

Runs, and why a step was skipped

Every run is listed in Runs: Waiting for review, Succeeded, Partially succeeded, Failed, Conditions not met, Skipped or Cancelled. Open a run to see which conditions held, which branch ran and what each step did, with links to what it created. Retry step repeats a failed step.

• Not taken: the step is in a branch that was not chosen.
• Skipped happens when an earlier step failed and its If this step fails setting was Stop this branch; when all automations are halted; when the monthly limit is reached; or when the person who published it lost access or two-factor. In that last case the automation pauses until another owner or admin publishes it again.