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Creating an Automation

Start by navigating to the automations page within the Courier app. From there, a new automation template can be created by clicking the New Automation Button.
Automations Home Page

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Renaming an Automation

To rename a template, click the name in the upper left hand corner of the designer. By default, the name is “Untitled Automation”. The name is automatically saved after being updated.
Renaming an automation template

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Working with Automation Nodes

A new template starts with a placeholder trigger node. A trigger node defines what starts an automation run. The trigger is optional; you can always invoke a template directly via POST /automations/:template_id/invoke. To add nodes, expand from the list on the left and then click and drag a node onto the right. The first trigger and action node will snap into their respective placeholders: Nodes are executed sequentially through their connections, from top to bottom. To connect two nodes, click and drag from the white dot at the bottom of the source node to the top of the target node:

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Automation Invocation

Be sure to publish the template before invoking (using the publish button on the upper right).
There are a few ways to invoke a template, either directly in the automation template, through a trigger node, or through an api call. See Scheduling automations or Triggering With Segment to get an understanding of how trigger nodes work.

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Difference View

When publishing a template, the automation designer will prompt the user with a difference view confirmation showing the changes between versions. You can confirm the changes on this window.
Difference Modal

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Invoking an Automation using the API

To run an automation by api call, grab the automation template id or the alias from the settings section of the designer and invoke it by calling POST api/automations/:template_id_here/invoke. View Automations API docs for more details.
Template ID location, settings tab

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Invoking an Automation from the Designer

You can invoke the automation template directly from the designer in the Invoke tab. This can be a good way to test the automation or to invoke very simple automation templates. Note: Invoking from the designer will pass an empty data payload {} to the automation run
Template invoke tab

Steps Reference

All automation action types

Debugger

Test automations before production

Scheduling

Schedule automations with cron, recurrence, or one-time triggers

Automations API

Invoke automations via API