---
title: "Build Your First Automation"
description: "Start from a template or a blank canvas, add and set up steps in the builder, test it with sample data, publish it, approve its grant and turn it on."
section: "Automations"
canonical: "https://banksync.io/docs/automations/automations-first-automation"
specs: ["automations","marketplace"]
operationBindings: [{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.create"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.edit"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.validate"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.binding.set"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.config.set"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.fixture.set"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.nodes.search"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.nodes.options"},{"capability":"marketplace","operation":"marketplace.installs.create"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.revision.publish"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.grant.request"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.grant.approve"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.activate"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.run.start"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.run.list"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.run.read"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.notify"},{"capability":"automations","operation":"automations.email"}]
---

This guide takes one automation from nothing to running: **Email me when a balance runs low**, which watches an account's balance and emails you when it goes under an amount you set. Every automation follows the same path, so the steps carry over to your own.

## 1. Start one

Open **Automations** and choose **New automation**. The dialog asks for a name and what starts it:

- **When something happens** — a bank, feed, table, mailbox or support event. See [Triggers](/docs/automations/automations-triggers).
- **On a schedule** — every few minutes, hour, day, week or month, or a cron expression.
- **By hand** — a Run button in the toolbar, or a call from an API key or an agent.
- **From a template** — one of BankSync's ready-made automations, with its trigger and steps in place.

For this guide, pick **From a template** and choose **Email me when a balance runs low**. The card shows what starts it and what it needs; the install checklist asks for the bank, then which of its accounts to watch and the amount, and **Install** makes the automation — switched off — and opens it in the builder. Nothing runs yet. See [Automation Templates](/docs/automations/automations-templates).

You can also start where the data is: the **Automate** menu on a bank's page offers the triggers and templates that fit that bank, with the bank already bound.

## 2. Find your way round the builder

The builder is one page with four parts:

- **The toolbar** across the top. On the left, the way back to **All automations**, the automation's name (click it to rename; click the icon beside it to pick another) and whether the draft is saved. On the right, the **On/Off** switch, **Test**, **Publish changes** (shown only while the draft differs from what is published), the grant (a dot that says where the approval stands), **Runs** and the **More** menu.
- **The canvas** in the middle. Each step is a card; the wires between them are the order they run in. A **+** on every wire and after the last card adds a step there. Drag a card to move it: only that card moves, and it stays where you put it. Guide lines show when it lines up with another card, and it snaps to them. **Tidy up**, in the canvas controls beside **Fit** or on the menu you get by right-clicking the paper, lets the layout settle again. To rewire a step, select the wire and drag one of its ends to another step. Right-click a card, a wire or the paper for what you can do there: rename, duplicate, copy, paste, add a step, delete. The findings list — what is left to do before publishing — sits under the canvas.
- **The right panel**, in one of two modes. **Steps** is the library: a search box and the kinds of step, grouped as **Starts when**, **Your apps** (Banks, Feeds, Tables, Mailboxes, Support and the rest), **Decide**, **Shape data**, **Ask AI** and **Tell someone**. **Setup** is the selected step's settings. Selecting a step shows Setup; clearing the selection shows Steps; closing the panel gives the canvas the width. On a phone or in a narrow window, the panel opens as a sheet under the canvas instead: select a step and its Setup opens there.
- **The folders panel** on the left, the same one the Automations tab shows. **\[** opens and closes it.

> **Moving round the canvas:** With a mouse or trackpad, drag on empty paper to select the cards it touches;
> hold Shift to add to the selection. Scroll to pan, or hold Space and
> drag, or drag with the middle button. ⌘ or Ctrl with the scroll wheel,
> or a pinch, zooms. On a touch screen, one finger pans and a pinch zooms. Tap a
> card to select it, then drag it to move it; a finger on a card you have not
> selected pans instead, so a stray touch never moves a step. Press and hold for
> the menu.

> **Keyboard shortcuts:** ? shows them all. Undo and redo are ⌘Z and ⌘⇧Z (Ctrl on Windows),
> Delete removes the selection, ⌘A selects everything, Escape clears
> the selection, ⌘C / ⌘V copy and paste steps, ⌘D duplicates, +
> and - zoom, Shift+1 zooms to fit, Shift+0 goes back to 100%, M
> shows the minimap (on a larger screen with a mouse or trackpad), G turns
> snapping on and off, and the arrow keys nudge the selection (further with
> Shift).

## 3. Set up each step

Click a step to open its **Setup**. The header shows the step's name and icon; rename it in place if the sentence on the card does not say what you mean. Three tabs follow:

- **Setup** — the questions the step asks. A step that acts on one thing (a bank, an account, a table) offers a picker, so you choose it the way you choose a table anywhere else. A step that takes a value shows a field you can type in or fill from **Data from earlier steps**: every step visible from this one, nearest first, with its fields and a sample value. Clicking a field puts it into the setting as a pill, or at the cursor in a formula. A step that can run once per item or once for the whole list says so, and lets you change it.
- **If it fails** — retries, what happens when it still fails, and deadlines. See [Branches, loops, parallel paths and failures](/docs/automations/automations-control-flow#when-a-step-fails).
- **Notes** — your notes, whether the step is disabled, and what the step is and may do. Under **Advanced** is the name expressions use for this step (`node('ref')`).

For the balance template:

1. Open the trigger, **When a balance crosses a level**. The bank, account and amount you chose at install are already set; change them here if you like. A picker that waits for an earlier choice says so (**Pick a bank first**).
2. Open **Send an email** and read the message. It is a formula that joins words and values, such as `item.balance.amount`; see [Steps and shaping data](/docs/automations/automations-steps-and-data#expressions). **Who should get it?** is **Only me**, the member who approves the automation; choose **Owners and admins** or **Owners, admins and editors** to email them instead. It never emails anyone outside the workspace.

![A picker field reading Pick a table, with a chevron to open the list of choices.](https://cdn.banksync.io/screenshots/workflows/node-options-field.465ec672d858be90.png "A step that acts on one thing offers a picker. The same control chooses a bank, an account, a feed, a table or a widget.")

The findings under the canvas keep up as you work. **To do** lists what stops publishing (an empty picker, a wire that leads nowhere), **May lose detail** lists what was dropped or ignored, and **Advice** is just that. Each finding links to its step.

## 4. Test it before anything is real

**More → Settings** holds two things the draft needs to be tested: **Values** (config the automation declares — a limit, a label, an hour; set per workspace and never exported) and **Test data** for each trigger, as JSON.

![The Settings panel of the builder: a Values section with digestHour, channelLabel and includePending fields, each with a Set button, and a Test data section headed When a bank needs signing in again holding a JSON sample with bankId, institution and reason.](https://cdn.banksync.io/screenshots/workflows/settings.0b205ee1ba82e460.png "Settings: the values the steps share, and the sample data each trigger is tested with.")

Then press **Test** in the toolbar. The draft runs on the sample data: steps that read run for real, and every step that would send or write hands on its sample instead. The runs panel marks the run as a test, and each step shows what it was given and what it gave. To try one step alone, select it and choose **Test this step**. [Testing, running and run history](/docs/automations/automations-testing-and-runs) covers both in detail.

## 5. Publish

**Publish changes** saves a version and asks for the automation's grant. A draft with anything left in **To do** cannot be published; the button says why. Publishing an unchanged draft makes no new version.

## 6. Approve its grant

The dot beside the toolbar's grant button turns to **Waiting for approval**. Open it: the panel lists what the automation runs, the permissions it needs (`banks:read` and `notifications:write` here), what it touches, where its data may go and any limits on steps that cannot be undone. A member who holds every one of those permissions chooses how long the approval lasts and presses **Approve**. If you are not that member, **Ask an owner**. See [Approvals and grants](/docs/automations/automations-approvals-and-grants).

## 7. Turn it on and watch it run

Flip the **On/Off** switch. From now on BankSync checks the balance as often as your plan syncs, and starts a run — one email — each time it goes under the amount. An automation a balance starts is tried by **Run now** on its sample data, sending nothing. Open **Runs** to see each run, newest first, with each step's status and attempts; select a run for its actions.

![The actions above an open run in the runs panel: a From the start selector and a Run again button.](https://cdn.banksync.io/screenshots/workflows/run-actions.7dd5a05fc158bd1c.png "With a run open, run it again from the start or from a step it reached.")

## Starting from a blank canvas

Choosing **When something happens**, **On a schedule** or **By hand** instead of a template gives you a canvas with one start card. The **+** after it opens quick add with the steps that fit next; search for what you need ("balance", "row", "notify") or browse the families. Everything else is the same: set up each step, test, publish, approve, turn on.

Prefer to describe it? Your agent can build one for you — see [Building with an agent, the CLI or the API](/docs/automations/automations-with-agents-and-code).