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Automation actions: everything an automation can do

14 actions are available in automations. Each action has its own guide that explains its options, limits and problems.

6 min
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What happens when an action fails

A temporary failure, such as a network outage, a timeout, or the other side being busy, is retried automatically up to 5 times. The waits start at 5 seconds and double, up to 10 minutes at most.

A message that may or may not have been sent (a connection drop while sending) isn’t retried automatically, so it doesn’t reach the client twice. The run stops and asks for your decision. See Follow the run log, and retry or resume from the failed step.

Each action runs only once in a run, even if it’s retried. A record update and a comment don’t repeat, and a message isn’t sent twice.

Actions on a deleted record

With the A record is deleted trigger, actions that write to the record are skipped, and actions that only read it run.

At a glance

Action
What it does
Most important note
Guide
Change the record
Changes fields on the record itself, a linked record, a specific record, or a record you found
Sets fields, relations and assignees
Create a record
Creates a record in any unit
Fills its fields and links it, and deduplication control applies
Create a task
A task linked to the trigger’s record
Assigned by a rule, and due after a number of working days
Create records on a schedule
A child record for each recurring date
Such as a visit for every month of the contract, once per record
Send a WhatsApp message
Text, and a PDF an earlier step generated
Reply buttons and lists
Send a WhatsApp template
An approved WhatsApp Cloud template
Works outside the 24-hour window
Send an email
Email from a connected mailbox, in the name of the automation’s creator
One reply per conversation every 10 minutes, and 200 a day per mailbox
Send to another app
Sends data to an external app
Public links only, a 10-second timeout, and a digital signature
Add a note
A system comment on the record
Can mention teammates
Assign to the next rep
Assigns the record through a distribution rule or scenario
Doesn’t change the current assignee unless you ask it to
Start another workflow
Runs another automation on the same record
Up to 5 levels and 25 calls
Generate a document
A PDF from a document template, saved in a file field
The link is valid for 7 days
Notify a team member
A notification in the app and on the phone
Up to 50 people
Find a record
Finds a record by a field value, for the next steps to use
Two paths: Found / Not found

Good to know

Up to 5 attempts for a temporary failure.
An update made only of empty variables isn’t written, so a mistake in a variable’s name doesn’t wipe the field.
The root, an action, and a delay can each branch out into up to 5 steps that run in parallel.
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