Automations let your account act without you. An automation is an automatic if this happens, do that flow: when something happens on one of your channels — a message arrives, a comment lands, a contact is created — a chain of steps runs on its own. You build each one on a visual canvas by connecting a starting event to the steps that should follow. This guide is the overview: what an automation is made of, where they live, the two ways to build one, and how to test it and switch it on.
You'll find these under Automations in the left sidebar, and the tab you build them on is called Workflows. So automation and workflow mean the same thing here: one automatic flow. This guide says automation for the flow itself and Workflows for the tab it lives on. Workflows is one of nine tabs in the module — the others are mapped out below.
What an automation is
Think of an automation as a rule you draw instead of write. Each one is a small map of connected boxes — called nodes — that the system reads in order. The node at the top is the trigger: the event that kicks everything off. The nodes below it are actions: what happens in response. Connect the trigger to the first action, add as many actions as you like, and you've described a complete when this, do that behaviour.
Here's a plain example: when someone comments on your Facebook post, send them a private message and tag them as a lead. The comment is the trigger; the message and the tag are the actions — and all of it happens by itself, the moment the comment lands.
The canvas is visual, so you're never writing code — you drag nodes in and draw lines between them. If you can sketch a flowchart, you can build an automation.
The two pieces: a trigger and its actions
However big it grows, every automation is made of just two kinds of pieces:
- A trigger — the one event that starts the flow. It lives in a single fixed node at the top of the canvas and is the thing the automation waits for: a new message, a comment on a post, a tag being applied, a new contact, a scheduled time, and so on. An automation can listen for more than one trigger, but they all sit together in that one starting node.
- Actions — the steps that run after the trigger fires. Sending a message, waiting a while, branching on a yes-or-no condition, adding a tag, or handing the conversation to a human are all actions. You line them up in the order you want them to happen.
Nodes are joined by connections — lines you draw from one node's output to the next node's input. The first connection is the important one: linking the trigger to your first action is what gives the automation somewhere to start. Until that line exists, there's nothing to run. Triggers and actions each have their own guide, linked at the end of this page.
The nine tabs of Automations
Workflows is where you build the flows this guide describes, but it's one tab of nine. The rest of the Automations module holds the pieces your flows draw on and the ways other systems plug into them. Six of the nine appear only when your plan includes them — and every paid plan includes all six, so there's nothing to switch on and no beta to join. The other three — Workflows, Gallery and Capture — are never checked against a plan at all, so they're on the strip whatever you're paying.
| Tab | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Workflows | The visual builder — each automation is a canvas of triggers, conditions, AI agents and actions. Everything else in this guide is about this tab. |
| Gallery | Ready-made automations: pick a recipe, fill in the blanks it asks for, and it installs as a Draft you open, point at a channel, and publish. One install covers one channel, so install the recipe again for each extra channel you want it running on. |
| Capture | Entry links and QR codes that bring people into a conversation. Name the source, pick the channel, set a code word, and you get a link, a downloadable QR image, and a Draft automation that greets whoever arrives and tags them with where they came from. |
| Essentials | Five clone-native starting points a contact meets before they reach a person — welcome message, default reply, conversation starters, main menu, and collecting opt-ins. Still a preview: the buttons say Changes saved, but nothing is written and nothing runs — build these behaviours as Workflows for now. |
| Sequences | Drip campaigns: a series of steps that fire after a delay counted from enrolment, from the previous step, or from a date on the contact. Each step is itself a full workflow. |
| Connectors | Where you connect the outside services your automations use — a Shopify store, a Google Sheet, a CRM. Flows refer to a connection by name, so you can rotate credentials here without opening a single flow. See Connecting your Shopify store. |
| API Keys | Keys for calling your account programmatically from your own code. A key is shown in full only once, when you create it; to rotate one you revoke it and create another. You can also give a key an expiration when you create it — 30 days, 90 days or 1 year — after which the API refuses it on its own. |
| Webhooks | The other direction: outbound HTTP callbacks that fire when contact, message or workflow events happen, so your own systems hear about them. You subscribe per event and can inspect each subscription's delivery history. |
| Code Pools | Lists of codes you supply in advance — discount codes, licence keys — that the Issue Code action hands out one per contact until the pool runs dry. |
The API Keys tab here is for calling IcloneU's public API from your own code. It is not the API keys entry in the left sidebar — that one configures the embeddable web-chat widget, and it's a separate surface with its own guide, Creating and managing API keys. Check which one you're on before you go hunting for a key.
The Workflows list
The Workflows tab opens on a list of every automation in your account. Each row is one automation, and the columns tell you its state at a glance:
- Name — the automation's name and short description, with a Draft or Live badge beside it.
- Triggers — how many events it's listening for.
- Runs — how many times it has run.
- Modified — when it was last changed.
Two buttons sit above the list — New Automation to build one from scratch and AI Advisor to have one built for you (both covered just below) — along with a search box. Select any row and you can open it, rename it, move it into a folder, or delete it; the list groups your automations by folder to keep things tidy. Before you've made your first one, the list simply reads No automations yet with a Create your first automation button.
Every change you make in the editor — adding a node, renaming, drawing a connection, choosing an account — is saved the instant you make it. There's no Save and no Publish button to hunt for. The only control that decides whether an automation actually runs is the Set Live / Revert to Draft switch, covered under Going live below.
Two ways to build one
There are two ways to create an automation, and you can mix them freely — rough one out with the AI, then fine-tune it by hand, or the other way round.
Build it yourself
Click New Automation and a blank automation opens straight away as a Draft. Add your starting event with Add Trigger, drop in steps with Add Node, and draw connections between them to set the order. The Building your first workflow guide walks this route step by step.
Let the AI Advisor build it
Click AI Advisor and describe what you want in plain language. It opens with I'll help you create a new automation workflow. What would you like to build? and then assembles the trigger and actions for you. It can edit an automation you already have open, too — ask it to add a step or reword a message and it makes the change right on the canvas.
Anything the AI Advisor builds is made of ordinary nodes on the same canvas, so you're free to adjust, add to, or delete any of it by hand afterwards.
Test it before you ship
Before you switch an automation on, you can watch it run without touching a single real contact.
The Test button opens a dry-run tester that runs your automation through the real engine with a sample message — but nothing actually goes out. Its subtitle says it plainly: Run this workflow through the real engine with a sample payload. Nothing is sent — every action is intercepted and traced. You choose a trigger and a sample contact, run it, and each step streams past so you can see exactly what would have happened.
Test lights up only once the automation has a trigger connected to a first action and an account chosen — the same two things it needs to run for real. If the button is greyed out, one of those is still missing.
There's also a lighter Preview: a phone-style mockup that walks the flow with made-up sample data so you can eyeball how the messages read. Think of Preview as a quick visual sketch and the tester as the true dry run — only the tester puts your flow through the real engine.
Going live
A brand-new automation is a Draft, and drafts never fire — you can build and test one all day without it ever reaching a contact. When it's ready, turn it on with Set Live on the automation bar. Only Live automations run against real events, and Revert to Draft switches one back off whenever you want.
Each automation runs on one connected account, and that account sets its platform. You pick it with the account selector on the automation bar: choose a WhatsApp account and it's a WhatsApp automation, a Facebook account and it's a Facebook one. That's also why the tester needs an account chosen before it can run — and why one automation covers one channel, not several at once.
When you set an automation live, IcloneU runs a quick check and may warn you about a step that still needs setup — but it won't stop you, since you can choose Set live anyway. That's why testing first is the real safety net.
Frequently asked
Yes. The tab you build on is called Workflows, and everywhere else the product calls each flow an automation — they're two names for the same thing: one automatic if this happens, do that flow.
No. Automations are built visually — you drag nodes onto a canvas and draw lines between them. There's no code to write, and the AI Advisor can even build a first version for you from a plain-language description.
No. A Draft never fires, and the tester intercepts every action — its own subtitle promises Nothing is sent. The only time an automation contacts anyone is when it's Live and a real event triggers it.
Three things to check. Is it Live rather than a Draft? Is the trigger connected to a first action, so the flow has a starting point? And is an account chosen on the automation bar? An automation needs all three before it can run.
No — each automation runs on one connected account, which fixes it to a single platform. To cover more than one channel, build a separate automation for each and point it at that channel's account.
Last updated August 25, 2026 · Automations
