Create automations

Automations are custom workflows that can streamline repetitive tasks like onboarding and offboarding, ensuring consistency and reducing manual effort.

Automations in ConductorOne empower you to build custom workflows for repetitive tasks, significantly streamlining your operational processes. Automations are ideal for kicking off critical processes when an employee’s status changes, providing seamless onboarding, secure offboarding, efficient role transfers, and timely access reviews. Automations ensure consistency, reduce manual effort, and improve compliance.

Find and manage all your automations on the Automations page.

Automation structure

Here’s a sample automation’s details page:

Let’s break down the structure:

1. Automation trigger: This determines what causes an automation to run. This automation’s trigger is turned on, so it will run automatically. You can also manually start an automation run at any time by clicking Run at the top of the page.
2. Automation steps: These are the actions your automation performs. This automation has only one step, but you can add as many as you need.
3. Publication status: Each automation is in either a draft or published state. Here, the Publish button is greyed out to indicate that this automation is published.
4. Version number: Automations are versioned (this one is v2), and you can restore a previous version of an automation if necessary.

Create a new automation

A user with the Super Admin role in ConductorOne must complete this task.

1. Navigate to Admin > Automations and click New automation.

2. Give your automation a name and add a description, if desired.

3. Click Set automation trigger and choose the event that will trigger this automation. Refer to the automation triggers reference for details on the available triggers.

4. Set the Automation toggle to On if you want to start triggering the automation when the event you’ve selected occurs as soon as the automation is published. You can also leave the toggle off for now, if desired.

   Automations in their draft state do not run automatically, even if this toggle is enabled.

5. Click Add step and select the first step for the automation. Refer to the automation steps reference for details on the available automation steps.

6. Fill out the automation step form and click Save.

7. Click + Add step again and repeat the process to add additional steps, as needed.

   If you need to reorder the automation steps, hover over the step and use the arrow keys.

   To delete a step entirely, hover over the step and click the trash can icon.

8. To test your automation, click Run draft at the top of the page.

   You’ll be asked to provide context for the test run, and will see a panel showing the details of the execution as it proceeds.

9. When you’re ready, click Publish to put the automation into use.

   Make sure to check on the status of the automation trigger, and turn it to On if you want to start triggering the automation when the event you’ve selected occurs.

That’s it! The automation is now ready for use. To see all executions of this automation, click the … (more actions) menu and select Show execution history.

Fine-tuning your automation

On the Advanced tab of each automation step’s setup drawer, you can add a CEL expression that instructs the automation to skip the step if a condition is met. This section also displays the step’s Step ID, which is used to reference the current step’s output in later steps.

On the Available data tab, you’ll find data gathered from previous steps in the automations, which can be used to write CEL expressions to refine or define conditions in later steps.

Editing an automation

When first published, new automations are marked v1. If you make edits to the automation, it will create a new draft version of the automation, which you can test and publish (as v2) when you’re ready.

To see all versions of the automation, click the … (more actions) menu and select Show version history. You can restore a different version of the automation from this list.

App-specific automations

A user who is an application owner with the App Admin role can create and manage app-specific automations for the apps they own.

You can create and manage automations that are scoped to a specific app on that application’s Automations tab.

To create an app-specific automation:

1. Navigate to Admin > Applications and click the name of an application you own.

2. Click Automations. Any existing app-specific automations are listed here.

3. Click New automation, then follow the steps in Create a new automation.

All app-specific automations are also listed on the Automations page. Only users with the Super Admin role can see and manage these automations from this page.

Unused access automations

Availability and functionality of unused access automations

Some older connectors do not support the data needed to run unused access automations. The Unused access section is not displayed on these apps’ details pages.

Be aware that while the Unused access section is displayed on all current-generation connectors’ app pages, only those connectors that report last login data (and their child apps, as relevant) can correctly track login data and use it to strategically take action on unused accounts via an unused access automation. View the list of connectors that report last login information on the connector capabilities table.

CAUTION: If an unused access automation is set up on an app whose connector does not report last login information, the automation will take action on all app accounts.

Unused access automations are tailored to help you manage unused app access. These automations fire when a user has not logged into their app account for the length of time you specify.

Create and manage unused access automations in the Unused access section of the app’s Controls tab. This section shows the number of accounts that have not been accessed in the past 30 days (click through to see the full list of these accounts on the Access explorer page), and is the home of controls for quickly creating an automation for unused access.

To set up a new unused access automation:

1. Locate the Unused access section of the app’s Controls tab and click Add automation.

2. Choose from the list of automation templates:

   • Send a notification after 30 days
   • Revoke access after 45 days
   • Create a custom usage-based automation from scratch
3. The automation draft is set up for you. Click the Unused access trigger, review the details and make any adjustments.

   You can choose how to treat accounts with no login activity, set how to perform the initial runs of the automation, and narrow the automation’s scope, if desired.

4. Click Save.

5. If needed, review the automation’s steps and add additional steps as desired.

6. When you’re ready, click Publish.

   The automation is now ready for use. To see all executions of this automation, click the … (more actions) menu and select Show execution history.

That’s it! You can review and update this automation on the Unused access section of the app’s Controls tab (users with the Super Admin role can also see it on the Automations tab). You can also add additional usage-based automations to this app to further fine-tune how unused access is managed.