Automate App

The Automate App provides functionalities to integrate Automate into your stack. With the Automate App, you can bring all the capabilities of Automate to your entry editor in the CMS.

Let’s see how you can use and install the Automate app via the Marketplace to get started.

Prerequisites

1. Contentstack Account
2. Access to the Contentstack Organization/Stack as the Owner/Admin

Steps for Execution

1. Install Automate App
2. Create an Automation
3. Execute the Automation via Automate App

Install Automate App

Follow the steps to install the Automate App in Contentstack.

1. Log in to your Contentstack account.
2. From the left-hand side primary navigation, click the Marketplace icon to go to the Marketplace.
   
3. Click Apps from the left panel.
4. Within the Marketplace, you can see all the available apps. Hover over the Automate app and click Install.
   
5. In the pop-up window, select the stack where you want to install the Automate app, accept the terms and conditions, and click the Install button.
   
6. On the configuration screen, you will see the Entry Sidebar Rail UI location and the Asset Sidebar Rail UI location enabled for the Automate app. Click the Open Stack button, which will redirect you to your stack.

   Note: The Entry Sidebar Rail and the Asset Sidebar UI locations are enabled only for the Automate app.

   

You can view the Automate App on the Entry and Asset editor page in the Entry Sidebar and the Asset Sidebar Rail UI Locations.

Entry Editor Page

To view the Automate App in the Entry Editor page, follow the steps below:

1. Go to your stack, click the Content Models icon in the left navigation panel, and click the + New Content Type button. In the drop-down, select Create New or Use Prebuilt options.
2. Create a content type by adding relevant details and click the Save and proceed button.
3. From the left navigation panel, navigate to the Entries page, click + New Entry to create a new entry for the above content type, and then click Proceed.
4. In the right navigation panel, you will see the Automate App icon. Click to view the Automate App.
   
5. You will see two icons: View Recipes and Manage Automations. Click Manage Automations to create a new automation.

   On clicking the View Recipes icon, you can see the recipes list.

   Note: View Recipes and Manage Automations icons are only visible to an organization’s Admin(s)/Owner(s). Standard users can only execute the automation that is visible via the Automate App in the Entry Sidebar location.

Create an Automation

To start executing the automation via the Automate App, you first need to create an automation. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. From the left navigation panel, click Automate.
2. On the Automations project page, click the On-demand Automation project.
3. On the Automations page, click + New Automation.
4. Provide an Automation Name and an optional Description. Click Create.
5. After entering the basic details of the automation in the above step, the next set of actions can be broadly classified into the following two main steps:
   1. Configure Trigger
   2. Configure Action Step
      

6. Let’s look at the above steps ‌in the next section.

Configure Trigger

Configuring a trigger can be broken into the following steps:

1. From the left navigation panel, click Configure Trigger.
2. Within the Configure Trigger step, click the On Demand Automation trigger.
3. Under the Choose Trigger section, select the Entry Sidebar trigger.
   
4. On the Entry Sidebar Configure Trigger page, enter the details given below:
   1. Select a Stack and Branch from the Lookup list.

      Note: You cannot configure a Response connector with the On Demand Automation trigger.

   2. Optionally, enable the Show Optional Fields toggle button to display the Select Content Type field.
      
5. Click the Proceed button.
6. Click the Test Trigger button to test the configured trigger.
   
7. Click the Save and Exit button.
   

Note: After successfully configuring a trigger, if you re-configure any other trigger, you will be prompted to revert to the previously configured trigger. You can revert back to the last trigger configurations by clicking the Revert Changes button.

This completes the configuration of your On Demand Automation trigger.

Configure Action Step

You can configure any action connector based on your configuration. For this guide, we are selecting Email by Automate connector.

To configure an action step follow the steps below:

1. Click Configure Action Step from the left navigation panel.
2. Click Action Step to configure third-party services.
3. Within the Configure Action Step, click the Email by Automate connector.
   
4. Under Choose an Action tab, select the Email by Automate action.
   
5. On the Configure Action page, enter the To email address, the Subject line, the Body Type, and the Body of the email. The Show Optional Fields toggle button allows you to enter the “CC” and “BCC” email addresses.
   
6. Click Proceed after entering the details.
7. Click Test Action to test if the email sending was a success or not.
   
8. The email is queued and sent to the receiver’s email address. Click Save and Exit.
   

Activate the automation by clicking the Activate Automation toggle button.

Execute the Automation via Automate App

Once the automation is activated, you can check all the active automations in the Automate App. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to the Automate App in the entries page.
2. You will see a list of all the active automations. Click the “Execute icon” to execute the automation.
   
3. Once the automation is executed successfully, you can check the receiver’s email address for the email sent via Automate.
   

Asset Editor Page

To view the Automate App in the Asset Editor page, follow the steps below:

1. Go to your stack, in the left navigation panel click the Assets icon, and then click the + New Asset button.
2. In the Upload Asset(s) modal, click the + New Folder field, enter the Folder Name, and click the Mark icon to save the folder.
3. Click the Choose files button to start adding assets in the folder created in the previous step.
4. Once done, select the folder and the asset. Click the asset to navigate to the Asset Editor page.
5. In the right navigation panel, you will see the Automate App icon. Click to view the Automate App.
   
6. You will see two icons: View Recipes and Manage Automations. Click Manage Automations to create a new automation.

   On clicking the View Recipes icon, you can see the Recipes list.

   Note: View Recipes and Manage Automations icons are only visible to an organization’s Admin(s)/Owner(s). Standard users can only execute the automation that is visible via the Automate App in the Asset Sidebar location.

Create an Automation

To start executing the automation via the Automate App, you first need to create an automation. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. From the left navigation panel, click Automate.
2. On the Automations project page, click the On-demand Automation project.
3. On the Automations page, click + New Automation.
4. Provide an Automation Name and an optional Description. Click Create.
5. After entering the basic details of the automation in the above step, the next set of actions can be broadly classified into the following two main steps:
   1. Configure Trigger
   2. Configure Action Step
      

6. Let’s look at the above steps ‌in the next section.

Configure Trigger

Configuring a trigger can be broken into the following steps:

1. From the left navigation panel, click Configure Trigger.
2. Within the Configure Trigger step, click the On Demand Automation trigger.
3. Under the Choose Trigger section, select the Asset Sidebar trigger.
   
4. On the Asset Sidebar Configure Trigger page, enter the details given below:
   1. Select a Stack and Branch from the Lookup list.

      Note: You cannot configure a Response connector with the On Demand Automation trigger.
      

      
   2. Optionally, enable the Show Optional Fields toggle button to display the Select Asset Type field.

      You can select the type of asset (Image, Video, Audio, PDF, Plain Text, Document, Presentation, Spreadsheet) on which the Automate App will appear.

      
5. Click the Proceed button.
6. Click the Test Trigger button to test the configured trigger.
   
7. Click the Save and Exit button.
   

Note: After successfully configuring a trigger, if you re-configure any other trigger, you will be prompted to revert to the previously configured trigger. You can revert back to the last trigger configurations by clicking the Revert Changes button.

This completes the configuration of your Asset Sidebar trigger.

Configure Action Step

You can configure any action connector based on your configuration. For this guide, we are selecting AWS S3 connector to create an object in the AWS bucket, when an automation is executed in the Asset Sidebar via the Automate App.

To configure an action step follow the steps below:

1. Click Configure Action Step from the left navigation panel.
2. Click Action Step to configure third-party services.
3. Within the Configure Action Step, click the AWS S3 connector.
   
4. Under Choose an Action tab, select the Create a New Object action.
   
5. Click the + Add New Account button to add your AWS account. Refer to the AWS S3 documentation to add a new account.
6. On the Create a New Object Configure Action page, you need to enter the following details:
   1. Select the AWS Bucket Name from the Lookup list that appears when you click the textbox. The lookup drop-down loads the buckets already defined and present in your AWS account.
   2. Enter the File Name (for example, File01) or/and any value from the values list. For this example, select the asset name fetched from the Asset Sidebar trigger.
      
   3. In the Source dropdown, select the Source of the upload (Content or File URL) and the Input Value for each source.

      For this example, select the Source as File URL and select the file URL fetched from the Asset Sidebar trigger in the Input URL field.

      
   4. Click the Show Optional Fields toggle button to enter the text for the Tags and Metadata optional fields.
      
7. Click Proceed after entering the details.
8. Click Test Action to test if the email sending was a success or not.
   
9. The email is queued and sent to the receiver’s email address. Click Save and Exit.
   

Activate the automation by clicking the Activate Automation toggle button.

Execute the Automation via Automate App

Once the automation is activated, you can check all the active automations in the Automate App. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to the Automate App in the Assets page.
2. You will see a list of all the active automations. Click the “Execute icon” to execute the automation.
   
3. Log into your AWS S3 account and see the list of files in the bucket. In the AWS account’s bucket, you can see the created file.