Create New Automation
Before you can create, publish and start using any automation, you will start your build in the Dev environment. In this environment, you will be able to:
- Create a new automation
- Edit an existing automation
- Test your automation run
- View all logs related to tests done in the Dev space
Once you are done with the build, you can publish your automation to Live.
- Click on Design from the toolbar and select Create New
- You can also edit your existing automation by clicking the edit icon from the Design popup or from your Automation home page
An Endpoint is generated for every automation build, this can be used to trigger the automation. The endpoint can be triggered from your app or from a webhook. The Endpoint for the automation is accessible through the Properties window of the first task.
- Select the first task and click on the Properties tab
- Name your automation to save your automation
- If you have a sample JSON payload (either sent from your app as part of the endpoint call or received from a webhook), you can enter it under the Call data (JSON) section (note: this allows you to pick a response in the following tasks)
- Add a Description if you'd like (optional, for internal purpose only)
- Click on Other Settings and select Endpoint to get the endpoint for your automation
Add tasks to the automation such as API, Conditions etc through the Add Action tab
- Select the task and click on Call API (or click on the + icon) to add a new API task to your automation
- Add a Title and click on Select API
- Search for the API by name or provider (if you don't see the one you want, you can add it through the API Editor)
- APIs are listed under the following categories:
- My APIs: private APIs that have been configured by you/your team
- Direct: pre-configured APIs that call provider APIs directly and will use accounts that you ahve connected through the Connections tab
- Pathfix OAuth: APIs that are configured to work with your Pathfix OAuth account for all your connected users
- Core: APIs that perform core functions in your automation data received (read more on Core APIs here)
- Depending on the API selected, you will need to choose the Connection to use (if there are no Connections, click on Add Connection and authorise a new Connection)
- Complete all requested information to complete the API setup. You can choose to add dynamic content to each of the fields from the previous task (this can either be data sent from your app, received from a webhook or any of the previous API call data)
You can now proceed to add additional tasks by clicking on the + icon
Pathfix Automation allows you to use the data received from all your previous API calls in the next API call. This means, you can use this data in your next API call.
See example below, which shows how you can add the Xero customer data received in your Slack notification you send to your customer/team:
Each API task added has optional advanced settings that allow you to:
- Add a delay between your calls (this is especially useful if the provider API you are accessing has an API limiting in place)
- Run synchronously allows you to wait for the API call to finish (wait for a response from the provider) before moving on to the next API). By default this is set to Auto which automatically either waits for a response or moves on to the next API based on which API response is consumed.
Once you have built your automation and added the APIs you want to connect, click on the Test and Publish tab to run a test against all your API calls in the automation before you can Push to Live.
This is a mandatory step.
The entire automation will execute:
After testing has been completed successfully on all tasks configured, you can publish your automation by clicking Push to Live.
Please note, you will not be able to publish an automation without running the test first.
Once published, click on Endpoints to copy the Live or Dev Endpoints.
You can choose the automation to run on a schedule (instead of an endpoint trigger), this can be done by changing the schedule type for your automation.
- Click on Schedule and choose how you would like to trigger this automation:
- Manual: if you would like to call the endpoint from your app or use webhooks, leave this option as default
- Time: Select how many minute intervals to run the automation for
- Start at: select the data and time to run your automation
Once you have published your automation to Live, you can switch to your Live enviroment by clicking on the environment name on the top navigation bar and selecting Live.
Here, you can:
- View all Live automations
- View all tasks configured in an automation
- Copy the endpoint of the automation
- Enable or Disable an automation
You will NOT be able to change any of the configuration of a Live automation. To make changes, you will have to switch to your Dev environment, make the change, Test it and then Push to Live.