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Making awesome automation requires minimum effort; it's like drawing a master plan out of what your automations need to be doing while you focus on your newsletter campaigns.
You start by defining what triggers your automation, add the steps that you want and let your automation loose!
Let's see how building an automation works:
A. Finding the Automations page
1. Click on the Automations button, located on the left side of your Dashboard page. 
2. Click on the Create new automation button, on the middle of the Automations page. 
After you start designing your own automations you'll find this button has relocated on the top right side of this page, since this page will be filled with your cool and completely custom designs!
3. Click on the create a custom automation button, on the top of the Automation Type page. 
Alternatively you can search for a Recipe using the Search for a workflow search option.
B. Getting familiar with the Automations page
Now that you've found the Automations page, you can easily do any of the following:
- edit the automation's name and description
- add steps to, or remove steps from the automation
- expand the list of incomplete tasks
- activate or deactivate the automation
- save the automation as a recipe
Some of the above functions are self-explanatory but let's check how each one is done.
C. Naming your Automation
1. Click on the edit automation name area, located on the top of the page. 
2. Fill-in the field with a new name for your automation. 
3. Click on the save automation name when you're done. 
4. Click on the edit description area, below the automation name. 
Here's a small hint: you should avoid editing your automation's description right from the start, unless you really have something specific in mind. As soon as you start adding steps to your automation a description will start forming which each additional step. You can later edit the description and keep or modify the description parts that you want!
5. Fill-in the field with a description for your new automation. 
6. Click on the save description when you're done. 
D. Adding or removing steps
Every automation you ever make will have to start with a trigger.
1. Click on the Select your trigger area.
The "Select a Trigger" pop-up window appears, showcasing the available triggers.
2. Click on the gray dots to navigate between the different pages. 
3. Click on any of the choices available to select it. 
The window that appears begs the question: "Do you want this trigger to only trigger once?" to which you can answer either Yes or No and refers to each subscriber.
4. Make a selection from the drop-down menu. 
Out of all the available triggers the only two that require more information than that are the ones who emphasize on someone interacting a specific product; for those you'll also need to provide the Product Code.
5. Click on the Save button. 
Clicking on the Trigger List will return you to the available trigger choices.
6. Click on the "+" symbol underneath your trigger to add more steps to your automation workflow. 
7. Click twice on the " - " symbol on the right side of each step to remove any step from your automation. 
Be careful! Removing a step from your workflow will permanently erase it. You can always click on a step and edit it instead. You don't even have to fill-in every detail of each step to continue with your workflow; just click on the save button and the available task list will remind you which steps of your automation needs completion.
E. Working with the tasks list
1. Click on the Expand all tasks button.
The exact tasks that need to be completed for this automation to become operational are brought to your attention; until they are completed the automation will be indicated as Incomplete. The tasks list contains each remaining task, its status and the step to which it belongs.
2. Click on any of the incomplete tasks, contained on the tasks list, to go directly to the particular task's pop-up window. 
3. Click on the Collapse all tasks button to hide the list of incomplete tasks. 
You don't need to complete any of the tasks unless you want to actually use the automation right away! Alternatively you could just design the workflow you want, all the while avoiding filling-in any of the particular step details, and make a Recipe instead.
F. Saving the Automation as a Recipe
1. Click on the Save as Recipe button as soon as you create the workflow you want. 
A pop-up window appears.
2. Fill-in both the Recipe Name and Recipe Description fields, located on the pop-up window. 
Make sure that you give your recipe a memorable name and a useful description, something that you'll easily remember when searching for it at a later date.
3. Click on the Save button, located on the pop-up window. 
Your new Recipe will appear alongside the other available Recipes, to be used as the basis for your future automation designs.
G. Activating or deactivating your Automation
As soon as you complete all required tasks from your task list the Incomplete button will transform into an Inactive button.
1. Toggle the Inactive / Active button, to activate your automation. 
Keep in mind that any changes you make on your campaign's settings, such as change the campaign sender, or opt to track your campaign via Google Analytics, may take a while to appear.
These are the various options that you'll be using while working on your automation workflow. You can add and combine the available choices to create the automations that suit your needs perfectly - popular automations like Welcome Emails or Abandoned Cart are just examples of what you can achieve. We even provide ready-made Recipes which only require that you tweak a few details, and they're ready to go!