Triggers 101
Last updated
Last updated
Every workflow in Relay.app starts with a trigger, so setting up your trigger correctly is the most important part of any workflow. To get started, here's a 2-minute tutorial that will give you the basics:
At the top of the new workflow creation screen, you'll see a button to add a trigger.
The most common type of trigger is based on an action in a connected app. For example:
When an email is received in Gmail
When a record changes state in Salesforce
When a meeting is booked in Calendly
Once you've selected the app and the trigger type, you'll see a trigger configuration panel.
The panel contains three sections:
Trigger type: This specifies the event that will activate the workflow. In this example, the event is receiving an email, but within Gmail, you could also choose your triggering event to be a "Label added" or "Email sent."
Filters: Adding filters is optional, but they help make sure your workflow only triggers when you want it to. For example, use filters on this "Email received" trigger to control which subset of incoming emails should kick off the workflow—like only specific keywords in the subject, or whether there are attachments.
Preview: The preview table dynamically shows examples of past events that would have kicked off the workflow so you can make sure it's behaving the way you expect. For example, it can show which past emails would have matched the Gmail trigger and applied filters.
The trigger preview table is excellent for verifying that your trigger will behave the way you expect it to. As soon as you edit a filter, the preview table will refresh automatically to show how your changes impact which items would have triggered a run of your workflow. Whenever you change a filter, double check the trigger preview table to make sure you see the results you expect.
When you're confident you have your trigger configured correctly, you can move on to setting up the remainder of your workflow.
If you expect a trigger to fire and it hasn't, it's usually for one of these reasons:
The trigger is not turned on.
You're expecting it to trigger for an item in the past, but it will only trigger for events that occur after it has been turned on.
You have a trigger filter configured in a way that made the trigger miss the event you expected to catch. The trigger preview table is the best way to check if your filter is set up correctly.
It hasn't yet triggered but will. Some triggers can take up to an hour and even "instant" triggers can sometimes take minutes.
If you've checked all of those, it could be a bug! Click the question mark icon in the bottom right of the app to get help, or email support@relay.app with a screenshot or video recording of the event you expected to activate the trigger.
Occasionally, errors are encountered when a trigger executes. Examples of errors include:
The application or integration used for the trigger is down temporarily
The user no longer has access to the resources being monitored by the trigger in the integration
The resource being monitored doesn't exist anymore
The integration has revoked access to the user's connection
The connection used for the trigger has been removed (or was unshared with you)
When Relay.app detects repeated errors, an email notification will be sent to the trigger owner so they can be made aware and fix the problem. Note that Relay.app will only notify the user after a few errors have been detected to avoid over-notifying users about transient errors in the trigger integration.
After the trigger error notification is sent, Relay.app will keep trying to successfully trigger the workflow. If the error is persistent, the trigger will be automatically turned off and a second email notification will be sent to the trigger owner.
Workflows that have trigger errors or that have been automatically turned off will be highlighted in the navigation menu for the trigger owner and workspace admins.
