How to create an automation rule
Build a reliable WHEN and THEN rule with a clear audit trail.
An automation is a WHEN condition followed by a THEN action. The rules that survive are the narrow ones, because a broad rule becomes noise within a week.
Open Automations on the project
Rules are configured per project, which means a rule you build for one client does not silently affect another. Start from the recipe library if you want a known-good shape to adapt rather than building from nothing.
Choose one trigger and narrow conditions
Pick a single observable event, such as a task entering a stage or a due date passing. Then add conditions to limit when it applies. A rule that fires on every stage change is the one people mute; a rule that fires only at Client Review stays useful.
Choose a safe action
Assigning, notifying, and moving are low risk and easy to reason about. Prefer an action whose effect is obvious from the rule name. If you cannot describe what the rule does in one sentence, it is doing too much.
Run a dry test when available
A dry run shows what the rule would have done without doing it. Use it before enabling anything that touches assignment or stage movement, because those are the changes people notice immediately when they are wrong.
Enable the rule and inspect the run ledger
Once live, the run ledger records every execution. Check it after the first day. It is where you look when somebody asks why a task moved, and it is how you spot a rule firing far more often than you expected.
What success looks like
- The rule has one trigger, a clear name describing its outcome, and a run ledger showing it firing when you expect and not otherwise.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Building one rule that handles several situations, which becomes impossible to debug.
- Skipping the dry run on a rule that reassigns or moves work.
- Leaving obsolete rules enabled, so the board changes for reasons nobody can explain.
Questions about this workflow
Free includes none, Studio five per workspace, Agency twenty-five, and Scale is unlimited.
Scheduled and multi-step rules are available on Agency and above. Webhook and API actions are a Scale feature.
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