Automations

Automations let your agents do things on a schedule or in response to events, without you having to ask every time — following up on an unanswered invoice, escalating a support ticket that's been open too long, or running a daily summary every morning. CrabShack brings this together in one visual builder combining four related pieces:

• Workflows — multi-step sequences that can wait days for a reply and branch based on what happens (a reminder chain, an approval-and-escalation path)
• Processes — a task your agent works through step by step, optionally pausing for your sign-off before it takes an important action
• Email — connecting a mailbox so incoming messages can kick off a workflow or process automatically
• Scheduling — running any of the above on a timer instead of (or in addition to) an event trigger

This area is newly released

Automations shipped very recently and is still evolving quickly. Everything described in this section is working, but see Current Limitations for a few smaller rough edges worth knowing about.

Workflows vs. Processes — which do I want?

	Workflows	Processes
Best for	Multi-day sequences with waiting and branching (follow-ups, reminders, escalations)	A specific task your agent carries out, especially one you want to approve before it acts
Human approval	Not built around approval gates	Can pause and wait for you to approve a step before continuing
Starts from	A template, an event (like a scheduled time or an email), or manually	Created directly, or on a schedule or matching email
Good example	"Send an invoice, wait for a reply, chase after 5 days"	"Draft a reply to this customer, but don't send it until I approve it"

If you're not sure, start from a template in the Library tab of the Automations page — most common jobs are already covered.

What's in This Section

• Getting Started — starting your first automation from a template
• Current Limitations — what to know before relying on Automations for something important
• Workflows
• Processes
• Email
• Scheduling