Automations
An automation is a rule that says “when this trigger fires, run this flow.” It’s the piece that brings a flow to life: on its own, a flow is just a saved recipe sitting on the shelf; an automation is what decides when to cook it.
Flow vs. automation — what’s the difference?
Section titled “Flow vs. automation — what’s the difference?”This trips people up at first, so let’s make it crisp:
| What it is | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| Flow | A reusable sequence of steps that does the work. | ”Send a welcome message to the assignee.” |
| Automation | A rule that runs a flow when a trigger fires. | ”When a task is created, run the welcome flow.” |
One flow can be reused by many automations. Each automation, though, points at exactly one flow and one trigger.
Creating an automation
Section titled “Creating an automation”- Open Automations and create a new one.
- Give it a clear name — something you’ll recognize later, like “Welcome new assignees.”
- Choose a trigger — the event or schedule that should start it. See Triggers.
- Link a flow — pick the flow that should run.
- Optionally, choose to run it as a service account (a non-human identity) instead of as yourself, so the actions it takes are clearly attributed to the automation rather than to you.
- Save. From now on, whenever the trigger fires, the flow runs.
Launches: your run history
Section titled “Launches: your run history”Every time an automation runs, it records a launch — a durable, permanent entry in the automation’s history. A launch is your receipt and your debugging tool rolled into one.
Open the Launches tab on any automation to see, for each run:
- When it ran — both the scheduled time and the actual start time.
- What triggered it — the event or schedule that set it off.
- Whether it succeeded or failed — a clear status.
- What it produced — the IDs of tasks it created, messages it sent, and so on.
You can filter launches by status, trigger type, or who set them off, which makes it easy to answer questions like “did last night’s report actually go out?”
How a run unfolds
Section titled “How a run unfolds”When the trigger fires, BridgeApp starts the linked flow at its Start step, hands it the trigger’s information (like the task that was just created), and runs each step in order until the flow finishes. Flows are durable — their progress is saved after each step — so a run is recorded reliably from beginning to end.