Create an Automation
Users create automations by talking to your agent. There is no form to fill in and nothing for you to configure per automation. Once the policy is on, the agent handles the rest.
In this tutorial you follow Kirana Group's operations lead as she asks Atlas to watch project KG-2041 (the Surabaya warehouse expansion) every weekday morning and to tell her only when it is delayed or on hold. Use it to explain the feature to your users, to test it, and to recognise it when someone asks for help.
Before you start
- Automation is switched on in the policy of this agent.
- You can sign in to the agent's public chat (QA-Web) with a normal user account. The CMS preview never offers Automation.
- The agent can already answer the underlying question in a normal chat. Ask Atlas "What is the status of project KG-2041?" first. If it answers with the status from the Projects API, it can also check it on a schedule. See Connect Your API.
Step 1: Open the public chat and sign in
Open your agent's public chat, for Atlas https://app.qlar.ai/atlas-ops, and sign in. Automation is offered only to a signed-in person, and never inside the CMS preview.
Step 2: Ask for the automation
Describe the work in your own words, including when it should run, what to check, and what to do. The operations lead typed:
Every weekday at 7:30, check the status of project KG-2041 and give me a short summary, but only if it is delayed or on hold.
Step 3: Check the automation preview
Atlas does not create anything yet. It answers with an AUTOMATION PREVIEW — nothing has been created yet. Read it carefully:
| Line | What Atlas understood |
|---|---|
| Name | KG-2041 delay / on-hold check |
| Trigger | Every weekday (Monday to Friday) at 07:30 (Asia/Jakarta) |
| Next runs | Mon, 5 Oct 2026 07:30; Tue, 6 Oct 2026 07:30; Wed, 7 Oct 2026 07:30 (Asia/Jakarta) |
| Condition | Only deliver a summary when project KG-2041 is delayed or on hold. Any of: project_status (text) contains delayed; project_status (text) contains on hold. "If the condition cannot be checked, the result is delivered anyway." |
| Task | Check project KG-2041 using its project status record. If it is delayed or on hold, provide a short summary of its status, progress, budget, and current approval stage. |
| Action | Create a new conversation in Qlar and notify the user |
| Notes | Runs are at least 15 minutes apart on this agent; each run uses the user's credit like a normal message. |
The preview ends with Create this automation?
If anything is wrong, say so now, for example "Make it 7:00", "Also send it to my WhatsApp" or "Email it to me as well". Atlas shows a new preview with the change.
Step 4: Confirm
Atlas offers the buttons Yes, create it and No. Click Yes, create it, or type it as your next message:
Yes, create it.
Atlas confirms: "Automation set up. It will check KG-2041 every weekday at 07:30 Asia/Jakarta and create a short summary in Qlar only if the project is delayed or on hold. The first run is Monday, 5 Oct 2026 at 07:30."
From here on the automation appears on the user's Automations page (open the chat sidebar with ☰, then Automations). See Manage Your Automations.
What the agent does behind the scenes
1. It works out the automation
From the user's words the agent decides:
| Part | Decided from | In the KG-2041 example | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schedule | "Every weekday at 7:30", "every Monday", "tomorrow at 9", "every 2 hours" | Every weekday at 07:30 | Schedules |
| Condition (optional) | "Only if it is delayed or on hold", "if any safety incident is open" | project_status contains delayed or on hold | Conditions |
| Task | What the agent should do each time | Summarize status, progress, budget and approval stage | n/a |
| Action | "Give me a summary", "send it to my WhatsApp", "email it to me" | Create a new conversation | Actions, WhatsApp and Email |
| Skills (optional) | Skills of this agent that the task needs | None | n/a |
| Name | A short label, up to 80 characters | KG-2041 delay / on-hold check | n/a |
The agent checks the request against the policy at this point: whether automations are on, the trigger and action are allowed, the interval is long enough, and the user has room for one more.
2. It shows what it understood
The preview always includes:
- the Trigger, including the time zone, so a wrong assumption is visible;
- the next three times it will run;
- the Condition, if there is one, with each rule and whether all or any must hold;
- the Task and any Skills;
- the Action: for WhatsApp the number in international format (for example +62 812…), for email the address, noting when it is the email of the user's own account because they gave none;
- any notes or warnings from the policy.
3. The user confirms
Nothing is created until the user says yes. The confirmation has to be the user's very next message after the preview, so the agent cannot create an automation on its own initiative. If the conversation moves on first, or the user changes something, the agent shows a fresh preview instead.
Two safeguards are worth knowing about:
- The preview expires after 30 minutes. After that the agent simply prepares it again.
- For WhatsApp and email, the recipient must appear in the preview. The user has to see the number or address before agreeing, so a mistyped digit or letter is caught before anything is sent. If the preview did not show it, nothing is created and the agent shows the preview again. In a voice call the number is read out; the user then confirms with a full phrase such as "yes, create it now", because a short "yes" in a call can be an accidental reaction to background noise.
4. It is created
The agent confirms with what it will do and when it will first run.
Managing by conversation
The same conversation manages existing automations. Users can say:
| They say | What happens |
|---|---|
| "What automations do I have?" | The agent lists them with status, schedule, condition, action and next run. |
| "Change the KG-2041 check to 7 in the morning." | A change of schedule or name is applied straight away. Changes to the task, condition, action, recipient or skills go through the same preview-and-confirm step as creating. |
| "Pause the KG-2041 check." / "Resume it." | Applied straight away. |
| "Run the KG-2041 check now." | Runs once immediately, without waiting for the schedule. |
| "Delete the KG-2041 check." | Asks for confirmation first. |
| "How did the KG-2041 check do this week?" | The agent shows the latest runs: when, status, whether the condition held, and what each action did. |
Each of these respects the What Users May Do switches on the policy. If, for example, editing is turned off, the agent says so.
Where automations can be created
| Channel | Works? |
|---|---|
| Web chat, signed in | Yes |
| Voice call, signed in | Yes |
| Yes. If the user gives no number, the number they are chatting from is offered as the recipient. | |
| Visitors who are not signed in | No |
| CMS preview | No |
| Group chats | No |
| Agent-to-agent calls | No |
Limits to keep in mind
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Up to 80 characters |
| Task | Up to 4000 characters |
| Rules in one condition | Up to 5 |
| Times per day in a schedule | Up to 24 |
| One-time run | At least 1 minute and at most 1 year ahead |
| Minimum gap between runs, active and total automations, runs per day | Set by your policy |
Check the result
- Atlas answered Automation set up with the first run date.
- In the chat sidebar, open ☰ → Automations. The card KG-2041 delay / on-hold check is listed as active, with the next run on Monday at 07:30.
- To see a result without waiting, click Run now on the card. If KG-2041 is delayed, a new conversation with the summary appears and the bell shows a notification. See Manage Your Automations.
If Atlas does not show a preview at all, check that the policy is on, that you are signed in, and that you are not in the CMS preview.
Next steps
- Next in the journey: Schedules, the first of the three parts of an automation.
- Then read Conditions and Actions, WhatsApp and Email.