What is an action?

An automation action is a step that performs a task, activity, event, or change such as sending an email.

Think of an Action as:

When Something happens (the Trigger) and These Conditions are true, then This Event (the Action) occurs.

Select the action

After creating your automation and selecting your Trigger, now it is time to specify the action you want to perform when the automation fires. You can select your Action in the Then do this section at the bottom of the right-hand column.

Available Actions

Select from the available native SmartSuite actions to get started:

Create a Record
Update Records

Create a Record

Whenever your automation trigger fires and the conditions are met, the "Create a Record" actions will create a new record (row).

Select the Table you want the action to occur in and set up the conditions or scenarios that will cause the automation to trigger.

Update records

Whenever your trigger and its conditions are met, the "Update Records" action will allow you to change values in one or more SmartSuite records by specifying which records you want to update. To do this, you can either use the triggering record or use the Find Record action to create a list of records you want to update.

Configuring the Update Records action takes just a few steps:

1. Select Solution and Table

You will need to select a Solution and Table in which to update records. The default is the triggering Table.

2. Select Records to Update

If you have previously configured a Find Records action and you select a Solution and Table that was specified in a find action, you can use the output of that find to take action on the record or records that are returned by the find. When you do this, the fields you specify to update will be updated in every record returned by the find action. Carefully create your find actions to only select records you want to update! (and more on Find Records actions below)

3. Specify Fields to Update

Once you have identified the records you want to update, it's time to specify the fields to be updated and your desired values. The process goes like this:

Click on Add Field in Fields to Update
Select the field that should be updated
Specify the update value, which can come from fields in the triggering record, fields from another Find Record action, or values from the field (e.g. a specific Status value, for example)
Repeat steps 1-3 for each field that should be updated.

Find records

You may choose the "Find Record" action to build a list of one or more records that match your specified conditions. This list of records can then be used in a subsequent Update Records action to update fields in the matching record or records.

The find is configured as follows:

1. Select Solution and Table

First, identify the Solution and Table you want to perform the search on using the Solution and Table dropdowns.

2. Optionally Name your Search
You can optionally name your search to make it easier to identify in later Update Records actions. This is particularly useful if you have more than one Find Records action in your automation.

3. Specify Conditions for the Find

You then specify the conditions that should be used to match records in your target Table. You can use a combination of conditions if required by clicking the Add Condition button to add an additional condition row.

When you have multiple conditions you can select whether they all need to be true (AND) or whether to match if any of the conditions are true (OR).

4. Advanced Settings

You can set additional advanced settings to narrow down and select just the right records. You have two available settings:

Limit number of Records found. This value defaults to 100, but can be decreased to a minimum of 1. The find will return up to this number of records matching your conditions.
Sort the Records found by. This setting allows you to adjust the way matched records are sorted. For example if your find returns 10 records but you have a max records set to 1, you can use a sort on "Last Updated" date to return the most recently saved record.

The "Find Record" action can be useful in form submissions, support ticketing and similar use cases. When a form is submitted, this action could find records in your contacts or projects with the corresponding email from the trigger and update the submission to link to the found Contact or Project record.

Send an email

The Send an email action lets you create a SmartSuite notification, which includes an email message and a notification center alert. Configuring it is easy, and follows these steps:

1. Set Send To

Determine your recipient(s), the email subject, and the custom message to be sent each time the automation triggers. You can optionally CC and BCC recipients as well.

2. Specify Email Contents

You can configure the Subject, Message and even select attachments for the email. Note that you can click the + icon to add field values from the triggering record.

When the automation triggers successfully, an email will be sent to all specified recipients, along with the custom information.

3. Specify Notification Center Message

Specify the short text message that should be displayed in SmartSuite's message center when the notification is triggered. This text can also include field content.