> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.ideaboxai.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Automations Overview

> Describe a workflow in plain English and Persona AI builds it, runs it on a schedule, and tells you when something needs your attention.

Automations let you turn a repetitive task, pulling a report, summarizing your inbox, or checking a dashboard every morning, into a workflow that runs on its own. You don't configure triggers and actions by hand: you tell Persona AI what you want in a sentence, it assembles the steps, and the workflow is ready to run.

<Note>
  Automations is currently in **Beta** and evolving quickly.
</Note>

## What you can automate

Anything you can describe can generally be automated, from business-critical reporting to lighter use cases like a daily recap email or a recurring social post. Common patterns include:

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Scheduled reports" icon="clock">
    Pull data from a knowledge base or connected tool on a recurring schedule and deliver a summary.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Conditional alerts" icon="triangle-exclamation">
    Watch for a condition, an aging application, or a failed check, and notify the right person when it's met.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Multi-step pipelines" icon="diagram-project">
    Fetch data from one or more sources, transform or summarize it, and route the result to email, chat, or a file.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Key concepts

Beyond the basics, automations support more advanced logic for cases that need it:

* **Conditional logic and branching** to route a workflow down different paths (if/else, multi-way branches, even nested conditions)
* **Approval gates**, so a step can pause and wait for a person to approve or deny before continuing, with defined behavior if that approval times out
* **Loops and retries**, including retry caps, escalation after a set number of attempts, and parallel loops that converge once each one completes
* **Delivery options** for where a result ends up. As an emailed attachment or a shareable link, a Teams message with dynamically resolved @mentions, a file saved to Drive, or a record written back to a knowledge base.

| Concept                           | Description                                                                                                                                                                       |
| --------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Draft vs. active**              | New automations are saved as a draft first. Nothing runs on a schedule until you activate it, so you can review what Persona AI built before it goes live.                        |
| **Trigger**                       | What starts a run: a schedule (daily, weekly, a custom cadence), an event (a record created or updated), or a manual "Run now."                                                   |
| **Steps**                         | The individual actions a workflow performs in order, such as querying a data source or sending an email. Each step records its own output and execution time.                     |
| **List and Canvas views**         | Every automation can be viewed as a step-by-step list or as a visual, node-based canvas. Canvas view is especially useful once a workflow has branches or runs steps in parallel. |
| **Automation Overview dashboard** | A single place to see how many automations you have, which are active or paused, and whether any need attention.                                                                  |

## Next Steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Working with Automations" icon="gears" href="/automations/working-with-automations">
    A step-by-step walkthrough of creating, editing, and monitoring an automation.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>