Some automations take actions you might want to weigh in on first, like archiving inactive projects or deleting completed tasks. Human in the Loop or HITL pauses an automation right before that step and asks you to choose how it should proceed, so nothing destructive happens without your say-so.
About Human in the Loop
Human in the Loop is a safety mechanism for high-impact steps. These are actions you'd want a person to sign off on, rather than let an automation decide for itself. A few examples of what it looks like in practice:
- Cleaning up inactive projects: “3 inactive projects found. What should I do?” with options Archive, Delete, and Do nothing
- Bulk deletes: “Delete 12 completed tasks?” with options Delete and Cancel
- Any bulk or irreversible change: archiving, deleting, or updating many items at once
When you create an automation that includes a similar high-impact action, Automations automatically adds a confirmation step for you. Every time the automation runs and reaches that step, it pauses and presents a short question with a set of options. Here are a few examples:
- Archive
- Delete
- Do nothing
The automation waits for your answer before it takes any further action. Choosing an option that stops the automation, like "Do nothing", ends the run. The option is styled differently from the others, so it‘s clear it’s the stop path.
Both this confirmation step and its options are from the automation itself, so the wording you see depends on what the automation was built to do.
The pending question notification
When an automation pauses, you're notified by both a push and email notification, so you can respond quickly.
The Attention needed section
On your dashboard, under Attention needed, each pending question appears as a card with the automation's question, any extra details, and a button for each option. The card also shows when the question expires and gives you an Open automation link back to the automation it belongs to. Select an option to answer.
Push notification actions
On Android and desktop, you can answer a pending question directly from the notification itself. Select the option you want from your lock screen or notification shade, without opening Automations.
The Waiting badge
An automation with a pending question shows a Waiting badge on the automations list and on the automation's detail page, so you can spot at a glance which automations need your input. Select the badge to jump straight to the Attention needed section.
Response deadline
A pending question doesn‘t wait forever. If you don’t respond within the automation's response window, one week by default, the automation stops automatically instead of guessing what to do. This keeps a paused automation from stalling indefinitely.
Get in touch
With Human in the Loop, you can build any automation that archives, deletes, or makes bulk changes with your permission. You get to automate the repetitive work without giving up control over the steps that matter.
If you run into any trouble while adding Human in the Loop to your automation, get in touch with us.