Automation
Automation overview
Understand Workflow Studio, event automation, jobs, queues, and when each engine runs.
Antly has two related automation surfaces. Configurators usually meet them as one product experience; under the hood they do different jobs.
| Engine | Product surface | What it does |
|---|---|---|
Workflow Studio (workflow) | Object workflows, ticket workflows, document workflow studio | Visual, versioned node graphs (task, decision, approval, script, Iris agent, …) that you design, publish, and run as process definitions |
Automation engine (automation) | Automations list, versions, playground, jobs & logs | Event → job runner: model create/update events and periodic templates become Celery jobs with logs and a queue |
Use Workflow Studio when the process is a multi-step path people can read on a canvas. Use the automation engine when you need lower-level event reactions, scheduled jobs, or to inspect why a run failed.
Where to open it
| Path | Role |
|---|---|
| Main menu → Automations | Tenant-level automation templates, versions, playground |
| Object settings → Workflow Automation | Trigger workflows bound to a specific object |
| Tickets settings → Workflow | Workflows for ticket categories |
| Documents → Workflow studio | Document approval / process graphs |
| Automation job/log views | Failed and completed runs for debugging |
Workflow Studio in one minute
- Create or open a template group.
- Edit a version on the canvas (nodes + edges).
- Configure each node (assignees, decisions, scripts, Iris tools, delays).
- Publish one version — only the published version runs.
- Bind the group to an object trigger workflow or ticket category as needed.
Ticket workflows and object trigger workflows share the same node reference. Do not re-learn nodes per surface.
Automation engine in one minute
- An event fires (record created/updated, ticket changed, periodic schedule, …).
- Matching templates enqueue a job.
- The job runs actions (notifications, webhooks, consequences, nested workflow work).
- Job logs capture success/failure for operators.
Outbound webhooks are often fired from this event path — see Outbound webhooks.
When to use which
| You need… | Prefer |
|---|---|
| A readable multi-step process with tasks and approvals | Workflow Studio |
| AI steps inside a process | Workflow Studio (agenticNode + toolsNode) |
| Custom code mid-process | Workflow Studio scriptNode or object scripts |
| “When X is created, always do Y” with ops visibility | Automation engine + jobs/logs |
| Safe experimentation before publish | Playground |
| Zapier / HTTP listeners on model events | Automation events + webhooks |
Operating guidance
- Prefer versioned workflows: edit a draft, test, then publish.
- Name templates after the business outcome (“Escalate overdue cases”), not the implementation.
- Agree who owns failures: queue owner checks jobs & logs; process owner checks resulting tasks/tickets.
- Keep scripts small and deterministic; put long AI reasoning in Iris agent nodes with explicit tools.