What are automations?

An automation is a job Tideswell runs on a schedule, without anybody opening a screen. Some watch for something that matters and tell you: stock running out, a purchase order going late, an unusually large order. Others keep your figures, forecasts and calculated fields up to date.

They live in Brain › Automations, with Brain › Workflows on the row below. The page opens with one health line, then the Agent card, then the Alerts list and the Background jobs.

Why does this exist?

Because the alternative is somebody remembering to look.

Fairgreen Golf Co. checked stock every Monday. Anything that ran out on a Tuesday was out for six days before anybody noticed, and the first sign was usually a customer.

The Low stock alert closes that gap. It checks every 15 minutes and puts an item in the right people's Inbox when a product drops to five or fewer units in stock, whether or not anybody was looking.

When would you use one?

When something needs watching more often than a person can look. Three examples from Fairgreen Golf Co.:

• Priya wants to hear the moment a best seller runs low, so the team switches on Low stock.
• A purchase order from Portside Mills slips past its date. Late purchase orders, already on, tells the team within the hour.
• Dana wants a morning summary of the store before stand-up, so the team switches on Daily analyst brief.

What do the automations cover?

Three things, all on the same page.

• Alerts that tell people something: task due reminders, late purchase orders, the daily analyst brief, purchase order results, low stock, the shipping backlog, big orders, store data that stopped updating, and overdue supplier bills. See How to set up the stock and order alerts.
• Background jobs that keep the rest of Tideswell current and run features you set up elsewhere, such as keeping your catalogue in step with Shopify, refreshing forecasts, sending scheduled reports and running workflows.
• The Agent card, which sets up the agent that answers in your chat channels. See How to add the Agent to chat.

Every alert and job is described in How to see what runs in the background.

Which features depend on automations?

More than the alerts. Several features you use elsewhere are run by a background job on this page, so they work only while that job is switched on.

• Workflows run through the Workflow engine job. See What are workflows?.
• Special orders from the register are made by the Register special orders job. See How to turn a register sale into a special order.
• Scheduled report emails go out through the Report delivery job. See How to build, save and schedule a report.
• Calculated fields stay current through the Calculated field refresh job. See How to build a field that works itself out.

These four jobs start switched on.

The agent in chat looks for new work every five minutes, and the Agent card shows when it last looked, after the words Last looked for new work. If the agent is on but that check is off, the card reads "Its 5-minute check is switched off, so it won't pick anything up." and offers Switch the check back on.

What is the difference from a workflow?

An automation on this page is a job Tideswell built and maintains. You decide whether it runs, who it tells and how often it may speak.

A workflow is a rule you build yourself: a trigger, conditions and the steps that follow. See What are workflows?. Use a workflow for rules that are yours alone, such as "when a Repair is marked urgent, create a task for the warehouse lead".

The Create new (+) menu has an item called Automation. It starts a new workflow named Untitled automation and opens it on the workflow canvas, so that word in the menu means a workflow you build. See How to build your first workflow.

What can you change on an automation?

Click any alert or background job to open its side panel. Everything in the panel saves as you change it, and its foot reads "Changes save as you make them." beside Run now. The switch and Run now are covered in How to turn an automation on, off, or run it now.

What else the panel offers depends on the alert:

• Who gets it: Everyone with Mission Control or Only people I pick, on Late purchase orders, Daily analyst brief, Low stock, Shipping backlog, Big orders, Store data stopped updating and Overdue supplier bills. See How to choose who gets an alert and how often.
• How they get it: In Tideswell, which reads Always, and an Also by email switch, on those same seven.
• Wait between alerts, on the six of them that repeat (all but Daily analyst brief), so a figure that flickers does not alert all day.
• A threshold on two: When it alerts on Shipping backlog, a number of paid orders waiting to ship, and Orders over on Big orders, an amount in your store's currency.
• Written by on Daily analyst brief, which chooses the AI model that writes it.

Task due reminders reads "Each task's assignee." under Who gets it, and Purchase order results reads "Whoever set the target."

The Agent card near the top of the page sets up the Agent that answers in your channels. It also holds four settings: Follow up on saved findings; Check in on late tasks, which starts switched off; When it answers, set to When named or Never; and Late orders with no team. See How to add the Agent to chat and How to have the Agent check in on late tasks.

Where do the alerts land?

In the Work › Inbox of each person on the alert's list. They also reach a person's phone if they have notifications on, and their email when the alert has Also by email switched on.

Each person controls their own phone alerts in User menu › Account settings. The Low stock alert follows their Low-stock alerts switch. Big orders, Late purchase orders and Overdue supplier bills follow Notable order alerts, called Order alerts in the iPhone app.

Shipping backlog and Store data stopped updating follow only a person's quiet hours. See What are notifications?.

Who can use this page?

Brain › Automations appears for people who hold Manage automations, which starts at admin, while the Automations module is on. Someone with View workflows but not Manage automations sees only Brain › Workflows. See How to set who can do what.

Receiving alerts is separate. Until you pick names under Who gets it, an alert with that choice goes to everybody holding See sales, inventory, reports and the daily brief, a permission that starts at lead. On screen that choice reads Everyone with Mission Control.

How do you check an automation is working?

Read the health line at the top of the page. It reads "Everything is running. Nothing needs a look." when all is well, and otherwise names each automation that needs a look, with an Open button beside it.

For each alert, the Latest column says what its newest run found and when. See How to check whether an automation worked.

Where to go next

Start with How to see what runs in the background for the tour of the page. Then How to turn an automation on, off, or run it now and How to set up the stock and order alerts for the alerts worth switching on first.

How to choose who gets an alert and how often decides who hears about each one, and How to check whether an automation worked shows how to tell a quiet day from a broken job.