Automations

An Automation starts an Agent working on a schedule, or when something happens. It uses the same Agent, the same Skills, the same Computer, and the same approval settings as when you talk to it yourself. The one difference is that nobody is present. An Automation’s Run can’t change the Agent’s Computer, take or restore a recovery point, or update software, because those need the owner to be the one asking.

An Automation either opens a new Thread each time or continues one you’ve chosen.

Times and zones

A schedule carries the timezone it was written in. Eight in the morning means eight where you are, and it keeps meaning that wherever the work actually runs. Name a different zone and Runva stores that one instead.

Schedules are checked once a minute, so a minute is the shortest interval you can ask for.

If Runva couldn’t run something when it came due, it runs the most recent one and records the rest as missed, rather than firing five copies at once. Standing work usually wants today, not a backlog.

Managing them

Ask an Agent to schedule something and it starts running immediately. You can pause and resume any Automation from the Automations page, and a paused one stays paused until you say otherwise.

Each Automation has limits you can set: how often it may fire in an hour, how many steps one run may take, and how much it may spend per run and per month.

Deleting an Automation removes the schedule. The Threads and Runs it already produced stay where they are.

What a schedule doesn’t do

A schedule can start work. It can’t grant permissions the Agent doesn’t already have, it can’t stand in for the Agent’s owner, and it can’t supply a Connection that isn’t there. If an Automation was meant to continue a particular Thread and that Thread has gone, Runva treats it as a configuration error rather than quietly starting a different one.