Setting Up Basic Automations

Creating and Managing Automations

When you want an action to happen automatically after an event is detected within DevStride, Automations are the answer.

Automations live on the Automate Workflows page. Open it from the left sidebar under the Admin section by clicking Automate Workflows (flowchart icon). An Automation watches for a trigger and, when that trigger fires, runs one or more actions. You can optionally add conditions so the Automation only runs when specific criteria are met.

Triggers are organized into five categories:

• Time Based — for example, Every Time Period (a schedule) or Due Date Arrived.
• Work Item — events on items, such as Work Item Created, Status Changed, Priority Changed, Assignee Updated, Tags Updated, and more.
• Workstream — events on workstreams, such as Workstream Created or Workstream Parent Changed.
• Item Request — Item Request Submitted.
• Github — events from a connected GitHub repository, such as Pull Request Opened, Branch Created, or All Reviews Approved.

In this guide, you will create an Automation from a trigger that automates a task for you.

Add a New Automation Group

By default, every Automation is placed in the Other group. You can also create your own groups to keep things organized, which becomes especially helpful as the number of Automations grows.

Click the green + Group button in the top right of the Automate Workflows page. This opens the New Automation Group dialog, where you name the group. Once created, you can assign existing and new Automations to it.

Add an Automation

To create an Automation, click the + Automation button in the top right of the Automate Workflows page. This opens the Add Automation dialog.

Configure the Automation

At the top of the dialog you set two fields:

• Description — the name shown for this Automation in the list. (Placeholder: Add a Description.)
• Automation Group — which group the Automation belongs to in the list. (Placeholder: Select Automation Group.)

Below those fields, the builder is laid out in two numbered columns:

• 1. When this happens... — choose the trigger. Use the Trigger selector (placeholder Select a trigger) to pick from the five categories above.
• 2. Then do this: — choose the action that runs when the trigger fires.

To save the Automation, click Create (the button reads Update when you are editing an existing one).

For example: any time a Work Item Created event occurs anywhere under your Product workstream hierarchy, change the team to Product.

Refine the trigger with conditions (optional)

Conditions let you narrow when an Automation fires. Rather than being a separate numbered step, conditions appear as optional And only if cards inside the When this happens column. Add one with the Add Condition button, then pick a field, an operator, and a value.

You can add up to 10 conditions per trigger. When you reach that limit, Add Condition is disabled and shows a tooltip explaining that the maximum number of conditions has been reached.

The fields available as conditions depend on the trigger:

• Work Item, Due Date, and GitHub triggers can be refined by fields such as Direct Parent, Parent Hierarchy, Color, Item Type, Priority, Author, Tags, Time Estimate, Effort Points, Status, Team, Board, Cycle, Assignee, Custom Field, Due Date, and Time Spent.
• Workstream triggers support only the shared conditions: Direct Parent, Parent Hierarchy, and Color.
• Schedule (Every Time Period) and Item Request Submitted triggers take no conditions.

Operators vary by field — for example, equality (is equal to / is not equal to), contains / does not contain (Tags and Parent Hierarchy), numeric comparisons (Time Estimate, Effort Points, Time Spent), date comparisons (Due Date), and is set / is not set.

Choose one or more actions

In the Then do this column, pick the action to run. Actions are grouped by what they affect:

• Messaging — Send Notification.
• Integrations — Call Webhook.
• Work Item — Create Work Item, Create Subtask, Change Item Parent, Change Item Color, Change Status, Change Item Type, Change Priority, Change Team, Change Assignee, Change Point Effort, Change Time Estimate, Change Cycle/Board, Change Custom Field, Add Tags, Remove Tags, Set Due Date, and Change Time Spent.
• Workstream — Create Workstream, Change Workstream Parent, Change Workstream Color.
• Relationships — Create Relationships.

To run more than one action, add another and DevStride joins them with And Then.

Work with Tags in Automations

You can use Tags in a trigger, a condition, or an action. The Tag Selector lets you choose from all tag types consistently across every part of the Automation:

• In the Tags Updated trigger, set From any of and To any of (placeholder Any Tag).
• In the Tags condition, match Any of these tags (placeholder Select Tags).
• In the Add Tags or Remove Tags action, choose the tags under Tags to Add or Tags to Remove.

Monitor Automation Run History

To check how an Automation has been behaving, click the Run history (history) icon on the Automation's row. This opens the Automation Runs dialog, where you can review each run to confirm it matches your expectations or to help diagnose why it may not be firing.

Each Automation row also offers a Duplicate action to copy an existing rule, and an enable/disable toggle to turn an Automation on or off without deleting it.