Skip to main content

​
Overview

Automations are built on a visual canvas: a Trigger card at the top, connected to a vertical chain of step cards. You add steps with the + buttons on the canvas and configure whichever card is selected in the panel on the right. Edits autosave to a draft; nothing goes live until you click Publish. Automation builder

​
Step 1: Create the Automation

  1. Go to Automations in the sidebar
  2. Click Create Automation
  3. Give it a name — the title field at the top of the page. A name is required to publish.
New automations start as a Draft: they exist only for you and never run until published and turned on.

​
Step 2: Configure the Trigger

Select the Trigger card and choose your Trigger source (CRM), Object, and Trigger type in the right-hand panel. See Triggers for the full breakdown of trigger types and conditions.

​
Step 3: Add Steps

Click the + button below the last card (or on a connector between cards, to insert a step in the middle). The Add step dialog offers three groups:
  • Apten Actions — act on leads in Apten: Find Lead, Create Lead, Turn Off Lead, Send Message, Switch Profile, Add Context, Register DNC. See Actions.
  • CRM Actions — look up a record in a connected CRM (for example Find Salesforce Record) and expose its fields to later steps.
  • Control — Filter (stop the run unless conditions match) and Branch (split into multiple paths). See Control Steps.
Add step dialog Steps run in order, top to bottom, and each step starts only after the previous one succeeds. To remove a step, hover over its card and click the trash icon.
An automation can have up to 10 top-level steps, up to 10 steps inside each branch, and up to 30 steps in total.

​
Step 4: Reference Data From the Trigger and Earlier Steps

Most step fields accept dynamic references. Type / in a field to open a picker of available values:
  • Trigger fields — data from the CRM record that fired the automation, inserted as {{trigger.FieldName}}
  • Step outputs — results from earlier steps, inserted as {{steps.<stepId>.output.FieldName}}
For example, a Find Lead step outputs the lead’s Apten ID; a Send Message step placed after it can use that output as its Apten lead ID. This find, then act pattern is the backbone of most automations — see Actions. Every step has a Step ID shown in its configuration panel — click it to copy, then paste it into a reference by hand if you prefer.

​
Step 5: Publish

Click Publish. Apten validates the whole automation first — if anything is missing or invalid, a banner lists each issue and the offending cards are outlined in red. Fix the issues and publish again. While editing a published automation:
  • Your changes autosave to a draft; the live version keeps running unchanged, and an Unpublished changes pill appears next to the status badge.
  • Publish replaces the live version with your draft.
  • Discard draft throws away your edits and keeps the live version as-is.
Runs that are already in progress always finish on the version of the automation they started with. Publishing, turning off, or deleting an automation never affects in-flight runs.

​
Step 6: Turn It On

Published automations have an On/Off toggle at the top of the page. Turn the toggle On to start watching your CRM. Some triggers show an Activating… status for a short time while Apten prepares — see Triggers for what happens during activation.

​
Deleting and Restoring

Deleting an automation stops it immediately and moves it to the Recently deleted tab, where it can be restored for 30 days. Restoring recreates the automation as a draft for you to review and publish — it never comes back turned on automatically. Run history for a deleted automation is preserved for 90 days on the Runs page.