Chapter 50
Automations (Automatisierungen)
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Automations do routine work for your space without any code: when something happens (the trigger), if some conditions are met, then Coviqo carries out one or more actions. Examples: welcome new members and give them a role, post the meeting minutes to a channel, remind everybody of the weekly planning every Monday, list the overdue tasks of a room every weekday morning.
You find automations under Space settings → Automations. You need the permission Manage automations (owners and administrators always have it; admins can give it to other roles).
Creating a rule#
- Click New rule.
- Pick a template or start with an empty rule:
- Welcome + role – greets new members in a room and gives them a role.
- Meeting minutes to a channel – posts the AI summary of a finished meeting to a room.
- Weekly reminder – posts a message every Monday at 09:00.
- Overdue tasks digest – lists the overdue tasks of a room every weekday at 08:30.
- When – choose the trigger, for example Member joined, Message posted, Reaction added, Meeting summary ready, Task overdue, Event starts in … minutes, Schedule (daily, weekdays or weekly at a time in a time zone), Session started, Session full, Voice room has at least … people or New file. Session full and Voice room has at least … people fire at most once per room within a waiting time you set (Wait before firing again, 1–1440 minutes, default 15).
- If (optional) – limit the rule: only in certain rooms, only for people with (or without) certain roles, only for members who joined at least / at most … days ago, only for messages containing certain words, only within a time window (days and hours).
- Then – add up to five actions. They run in order; if one fails, the next ones still run.
- Give the rule a name and click Save.
How many rules a space can have and how many runs per day are included depends on the plan (Free: 3 rules and 100 runs per day).
Actions#
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Post a message | Posts a text to a room. |
| Private message | Sends the person of the event a personal notification "Message from <space>". |
| Give role / Remove role | Changes the roles of the person of the event. |
| Create task | Creates a task in a room – for nobody, for the person of the event or for a fixed person, optionally due in some days. |
| Create event | Creates a calendar event some days later at a time. |
| Post meeting summary | Posts the overview, the first action items and a link to the full summary to a room (only for Meeting summary ready). |
| Notify a role | Sends a notification to everybody with a role. |
| Reply in thread | Replies in the thread of the message that triggered the rule. |
| Webhook | Sends a signed HTTPS request to another system (see below). |
| Pin message | Pins the message that triggered the rule. |
Placeholders#
Texts can contain placeholders that are filled in when the rule runs, for example {member} (mentions the person), {member.name}, {room}, {space}, {date}, {meeting.title}, {task.title}, {task.due}, {event.title}, {event.start}, {file.name}, {role}, {emoji}, {lobby}, {session}, {count} and {tasks.overdue} (the overdue tasks of the room the message goes to). The builder only offers the placeholders that fit the chosen trigger and shows a preview. Values are inserted as plain text – nobody can sneak mentions or @everyone into a message through a placeholder.
Word conditions compare plain text (upper and lower case do not matter). Regular expressions are not supported.
Who acts – the automation bot#
Messages, tasks and events of automations come from the space's bot Automations (marked BOT), never in the name of the person who wrote the rule. The bot is created with the first rule and does not count as one of your bots.
A rule can never do more than the person who last edited it: that person needs the rights for every action (for example writing in the target room, giving the role) – when saving and every time the rule runs. Roles can only be given if they are below your own highest role, and only to members below your rank. If the author loses the rights the rule needs (for example leaves the space or may no longer manage automations), the rule is paused automatically and everybody who manages automations – and the author – gets one notification with the reason. The list then shows “Paused automatically” and a Resume button: whoever resumes it (or edits and saves it) needs the rights themselves and becomes the new author.
Test, pause, run log#
- Test runs the rule with a sample (you or a chosen person, a room of the rule) without doing anything: you see which conditions are met and a preview of every action.
- The switch next to a rule pauses it.
- Run log shows the last 100 runs: when, what triggered it, whether each action worked and, if not, why (for example missing permission). The log contains no message texts.
Loops and limits#
Actions of automations do not trigger other rules – unless you switch on Also react to actions of other automations for a rule (then one level deep at most). A rule runs at most 30 times per minute, a space at most 120 times per minute; beyond that runs are skipped and marked in the log.
End-to-end encrypted rooms#
Coviqo cannot read or write messages in end-to-end encrypted rooms. Word conditions are therefore not available for these rooms, and actions cannot post into them. Triggers that need no content (for example Message posted without words, or voice occupancy) still work.
Webhooks#
A webhook action sends POST requests with the IDs of the event (room, person, message, task …) – never texts – to an HTTPS address. Every request is signed like the event webhooks of bots: header X-Coviqo-Signature-Ed25519 over timestamp + body, X-Coviqo-Timestamp, event type automation.run. The public key to check the signature is shown on the automations page. Internal or private addresses are not allowed.