# Automations - build, change and pause them > Start an automation from a template or from scratch, change the ready-made messages other modules install, publish your changes, and pause one or all of them. *This article is being updated.* **Automation** is always on, whatever kind of business you run. An automation starts from a trigger, such as a new enquiry or a date coming up, and runs its steps for each record it starts for. By default, the Owner and Managers can open **Automation** and make changes. Someone else can be given access with a permission override in **Settings → Users**. See **Roles and permissions**. Someone whose role can see automations but not manage them sees **View only**, and can look without changing anything. ## The list Go to **Automation**. The tiles at the top show **Active automations** and **Needs attention**, the number of runs that are held. Select **Needs attention** to open the held runs under **Activity**. **Runs · last 24h** counts the runs that started in the last 24 hours, and **Completed clean** is the share of the runs that ended in that time that ended normally, not counting runs someone cancelled. **Completed clean** shows a dash until a run has ended in that time. Select **Active automations** to list only the active ones, and select it again to list them all. Each row shows the automation's name, its **Trigger**, its **Status**, how many runs are **Live now** and its **Last run**. A status is **Active**, **Paused**, **Draft** or **Archived**. Use **Search automations** to find one by name. The filter button narrows the list by **Status** or by **Source**: - **Built here** - automations your business made. - **Installed by modules** - ready-made automations another part of Prevarro installs, each tagged with where it came from, such as **From Payments**. - **Managed** - scheduled report packs and threshold alerts, tagged **Managed by Reports**. You set these up in **Reports**. Here you can only view their runs, and pause or resume them. Select a row to open it. From 80% of the day's limit on automated texts until the day ends, a banner above the list shows how many have gone. At the limit, automated texts pause until midnight. If you can manage automations, **Raise today's cap** on the banner raises the limit for today and held texts start sending. An Owner sets the limit under **Settings → Integrations → SMS & Phone (Twilio) → Daily limits**. ## Activity **Activity**, beside **Automations** at the top, lists the runs of every automation. Its count is the number of held runs. - **All runs** shows each run with its **Automation**, **Trigger**, **Status**, when it **Started** and its **Duration**. Use **Search automation runs**, or **Filters** to narrow the list by **Status** or by automation. - **Dead-letter** shows only the held runs. See **Why is an automation run held?** Select **Trace** on a run to open it in its automation. If your role can manage automations, a held run also has **Replay**, and you can tick runs and select **Replay** in the bar that appears, which names how many held runs it will replay. If your role can export, **Export** downloads the runs as a CSV file. ## Start a new automation If your role can manage automations: 1. Select **New automation**. 2. Choose **Start from a template** to pick a ready-made flow from the **Template library**, such as **No-show recovery** or **Welcome a new customer**. 3. The new automation opens as a draft. Nothing runs until you publish it. **Review request** is different: it opens the **Promoter review ask** recipe in **Feedback** and makes no new automation. **Build from scratch** opens a blank automation, but a blank automation can't take its first trigger yet. Select **Discard draft** in its header, then start from a template. A template's text message step only sends once SMS is set up and switched on for your business. Until then, that step is skipped. ## Build the flow The automation opens on the **Edit** tab. 1. The flow starts from its trigger, at the top of the canvas. 2. Select **+** on a connection to add a step: **Action**, **If / Else**, **Wait**, **Wait for event** or **Repeat**, or **Jump to an existing step…** to send the path on to a later step. 3. Select a step on the canvas. Its settings open beside it. 4. Use the gear button for the automation's own settings, such as **Quiet hours**, **Stop on reply** and **Re-enrolment**. Actions marked **Not available yet** can't be chosen. Not every action you can choose runs yet. The ones that run today are **Send email**, **Send SMS**, **Send review request**, **Send feedback request**, **Send feedback reminder**, **Send report**, **Notify team**, **Enrol in automation**, **Remove from automation**, **Set fields**, **Add note**, **Add tag**, **Remove tag**, and the actions that create or change a contact, organisation, opportunity, job, task or appointment. A run that reaches any other action is held. See **Why is an automation run held?** Your edits save to a draft as you go. ## Publish your changes 1. Select **Publish**. The review shows what changed since the live version, how many runs are under way, and what the automation would have done over the last 30 days. 2. If it's one of your own automations and it starts from an appointment, job, quote or invoice, the review also shows **Is this a service message?**, with its own explanation. The same switch is in the automation's settings. 3. If the review flags a problem in red, fix it first. Amber notes are for your information and don't stop you. 4. Select **Publish v2** to make it live. The number is the next version. Runs already under way finish on the version they started on. New runs use the new version. Until you publish, the live version keeps being used. While you have changes that aren't live, the header shows **Unpublished edits**. Select it to see what changed, then choose **Review & publish**, **Keep editing** or **Discard draft changes**. If your role doesn't have access to everything the new version uses, the button says **Send for approval** instead. The person who approves it sees the version with **Approve** and **Reject**. Until then, the live version keeps running, and you can select **Withdraw** to edit the draft again. ## Watch it run - **Live** shows the runs under way right now and the step each one is at. - **Trace** shows past runs: **Runs**, **Failures**, **Didn't run** and **Outcomes**. - **Test** checks the automation against your business's history. ## The messages Payments installs Payments installs the messages your customers get about their payments, such as **Payment failed notice**, **Payment receipt** and **Refund notice**, and the messages it sends you, such as **Dispute opened notice** and **Payout failed notice**. To see them with the other installed automations, filter **Source** by **Installed by modules**. Payments decides when each message goes out. Here you change what it says, and switch it on or off. To change a message's wording, open it, select the email step on the canvas, change the **Subject** or the **Message**, then publish as above. ## Go back to Prevarro's wording When an installed automation's live version differs from the one Prevarro shipped, select **Reset to default** from its row's menu, or from **More actions** in its header. Its wording, timing and settings go back to Prevarro's. Whether it's on or off, and its run history, are kept. ## Duplicate an automation Select **Duplicate** from a row's menu, or **Duplicate automation** from **More actions** in the header. An installed automation's steps can't be changed, only its wording, timing and settings. Where it offers **Duplicate**, your copy replaces it while your copy is on, and you can change your copy's steps. ## Pause or delete an automation - To stop an automation for now, select **Pause** from its row's menu, or **Pause** in the header when it's open. - To turn it back on, select **Set active** from the row's menu, or **Resume** in the header. - To act on several at once, tick them and use **Pause**, **Set active** or **Delete** in the bar that appears. Before you pause or delete an automation that customers or your business rely on, Prevarro tells you what will no longer be sent. Make sure your business has another way to cover it. **Delete** is permanent and ends its live runs. To delete one automation, you type its name to confirm. If you only want it to stop for a while, **Pause** keeps everything as it is. ## Pause everything In **Automation**, select **Settings**. The **Pause everything** switch is for an incident, and only someone whose role can manage automations can turn it on or off. While it's on, no new run starts, and runs already under way hold at their current step. They carry on from the same place when you switch it off. Appointment confirmations and reminders hold too, and scheduled report packs and threshold alerts don't run. While it's on, a banner shows at the top of **Automation**, with **Resume all** to switch it off. **Pause everything** doesn't reach the receipts and notices the payments engine sends itself, such as **Payment failed notice**, because that engine has its own switch. **Payment failed - each retry** and **Card expiring - payment method reminder**, which Payments also installs, are automations, so they hold with everything else.