Automation builder (Beta)

The Automation builder is an interactive visual builder where you can edit and manage automations. Automations streamlines your workflows, allowing you to customize triggers, define actions and create seamless processes to boost your team's efficiency.

Workflows and automations work together. Adding an AI Action in a workflow step automatically creates an automation in the background. 

NOTE: This feature is currently in beta and only available to a limited number of customers.

Overview

Located in the AI & Automations page, Automation builder is a UI-based tool that allows editing and management of automations in AI Actions and Workflow tasks. 

Until now, automations could only be created through workflows. With this feature, automations can be created, edited and managed directly in Contentful.

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Key features

Visual builder

Automation definitions are displayed as a series of nodes in a tree structure. Each node represents one of the following:

  • Trigger - defines when the automation runs (green).

  • Action - defines what the automation does (blue).

  • Condition - defines whether the automation should continue (yellow).

How automations work

An automation definition includes a series of nodes that execute a sequence of actions and conditions when a particular event trigger occurs. Action nodes run a certain task while conditions allow you to change the execution flow depending on the output of action nodes.

Triggers

A trigger starts an automation. Current options include:

  • Contentful events - these include entities, such as entries or workflows. 

  • Manual trigger - you can run these on demand. 

  • Scheduled - coming soon. 

  • External triggers - coming soon. 

Actions

An action defines how an automation performs. Some examples include:

  • Get entry - fetch content for use in the automation. 

  • AI Action - run a configured AI Actions step.
    Note: multiple AI actions can be added in a single automation. For example, when translating entries, several fields can be processed in one automation instead of creating a separate workflow step for each field.

  • Patch entry - write values back into Contentful. 

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Conditions

A condition checks whether an automation should continue. For example, you can run an AI Action only if an entry matches a specific content type.

Dynamic references

Each node has inputs and outputs. Outputs from one node can be reused as inputs in another. These are called dynamic references.

  • Inputs: can either be static values (e.g. text you type in) or dynamic values.

  • Outputs: only become meaningful when used by another node. For example, the result of an AI action must be passed into an Patch entry action to save the content back into Contentful.

    • Dynamic values: references to the outputs of previous steps. For example, the output of a Get entry node can be reused in later nodes.

    • This makes it possible to pass along not just field values (like title or body) but also system properties (such as createdBy, updatedAt, or tags).

In the Automations overview page in AI & Automations, you can:

  • View all automations you have created. 

  • Duplicate or delete automations. 

  • Review recent runs and execution status. 

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To open the Automation builder: 

  1. Log in to Contentful. 

  2. Navigate to the AI & Automations page and select the Automations tab. 

  3. In the Automations overview page, you can view your active automations. Select an automation from the table, to open the visual automation builder. 

  4. In the tree structure, you can edit and manage the automation definition. 

  5. In the right-hand sidebar, you can edit the nodes: triggers, actions and conditions. 

  6. Once you have completed the automation edits or updates, click Save at the bottom right. 


To execute an automation in a workflow: 

  1. Log in to Contentful. 

  2. Open a Workflow, select Add AI Action (e.g., Translate field content).

  3. Assign the workflow to the relevant content type (e.g., Business info topic). 

  4. Open the Automated translation step and click Add automation / AI action.

  5. Choose Translate AI action; set Source field (e.g., Name), Source locale (e.g., English), and Target locale (e.g., German).

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  6. Save the AI Action to the Workflow, click Edit next to AI Action to open the Automation builder. 

Limitations

The Automation builder (beta) supports a limited set of use cases:

  • You can execute up to 1,000 steps. 

  • Supporting all entry and workflow actions. Some actions and node types are not yet available in the builder.