Table of Contents
- Creating an Automation
- Editing Automations
- Automation Jobs
- Enabling and Disabling automations
- Deleting an automation
- Manually running an automation
- Chaining Automations
- Loops
- Best Practices
- Examples of Automations
Where is it?
Your list of automations is found on the Admin page “Automations”
Here you will find all the active and inactive automations.
The title of each automation is listed first, followed by the ability to turn it on or off.
Creating an Automation
To create your automation, head to Admin>Automations and click on the “New Automation" button in the top right corner.
This opens a modal window that will walk you through the process of creating your automation.
Triggers
Triggers are events that set your automations in motion. Each time a trigger occurs, iconik will automatically run the associated ‘action’.
You can also choose more than one trigger, the automation will require both to be completed in order to set your automation into motion.
There is no limit to the time between when the first, and last trigger need to be completed. Trigger 1 and trigger 2 can set off your automation whenever they are completed, even if they happen 5 minutes apart, or 5 years apart.
Automations with multiple triggers don’t take into account the order of events, nor the time between events. So, for example, if an automation has ‘Asset is Transferred’ and ‘Metadata is changed’ as the triggers, then if an asset was transferred previously (again, no time limit), then the metadata is changed today, the automation will be set in motion.
Some triggers will have specific conditions you’ll need to define, while others are a simple yes/no boolean and require no setup.
'Asset is new',
'Trigger if an asset is new…',
'Metadata is changed',
'Trigger if the value of specified metadata field is changed to the specified value…',
'Asset is transferred',
'Trigger if an asset is transferred to the specified storage…',
'Asset was created X days ago',
'Trigger if an asset was created X days ago…'. This trigger checks each day to see if any assets were created X days previously. It will only trigger when the asset turns X days old. So if you have items that are older than this age limit at the time of the automation creation, then they will be unaffected.
'Asset has not been modified',
'Trigger if an asset has not been modified for the specified number of days…'. This item will check to see if an item has been modified in the last X days.
Example: Since an item that has not been modified in 100 days,
'Asset is shared',
'Trigger if an asset is shared…'. This is
'Asset is added to collection',
'Trigger if an asset is added to the specified collections…',
'Asset is removed from collection',
'Trigger if an item is removed from the specified collections…',
'Approval status is changed',
'Trigger if the approval status is changed to one of the specified statuses…',
'Asset is archived',
'Trigger if an asset is archived to the specified storage…',
'Asset is restored',
'Trigger if an asset is restored to the specified storage…',
'Subtitle is added',
'Trigger if subtitle is added to an asset…',
Filters
Filters are optional checks within your automation to apply the subsequent actions only on certain media or asset types. This means even if a trigger would run the automation, these filters will only allow the subsequent actions to be applied to certain assets.
To apply a filter, hit the Add Filters button. Then choose which media types, and/or asset types you want to limit your automation to.
Media Types: Audio, Image, Video
Asset Types: Asset, Subclip, Sequence, Placeholder, Link, NLE Project
After selecting which types to apply your actions to, hit “Save Filters”.
Actions
Actions are the final step of an automation. If a trigger occurs, and it passes through the filters you’ve set, then this is the action the system will take on your behalf.
Currently, you can have the system take one action. But, actions taken by the automation system can trigger other automations, allowing you to create a chain of actions using multiple automations (see ‘Chaining Automations’).
'Update metadata',
Update the metadata according to preferences you set.
'Analyze asset',
Will run an analysis on the asset according to your preferences
'Archive asset',
This will archive the triggering asset according to your preferences.
'Request original',
Requests the original copy of an asset to to be transferred via Iconik Storage Gateway to another online storage. It performs the same action as clicking “Request Original” in the Files panel of an asset. See https://app.iconik.io/help/pages/asset/files/transfer#request-original
'Transfer asset',
Will transfer the triggering asset based on your preferences.
'Set ACL on asset',
Will set the triggering asset’s permissions (ACL) according to your preferences.
'Transcribe asset',
Will transcribe the triggering asset according to certain preferences.
'Restore asset',
Will restore an archived asset according to your preferences.
'Export asset',
Will export the triggering asset according to your preferences.
'Add to collection',
Will add the triggering asset to the selected collection.
'Transcode asset',
This will transcode the triggering asset according to your preferences.',
'Delete asset',
This will delete the triggering asset according to your preferences.
'Create share',
This will create a share of the triggering asset according to your preferences.
'Restrict asset',
This will restrict the triggering asset with a blocking metadata field. You can also optionally display a warning message on restricted assets.
'Remove restriction',
This will remove the restriction on a triggering asset.',
'Request review',
This will request a review of the triggering asset according to your preferences.
Naming and Saving
The final step for creating an automation is to give it a unique name, and save it. You can choose to enable the automation here, or turn it off, and enable it later.
Automation Details
You can click on the title of your automation to view the details of its triggers and actions. From this view you can also edit these features, or see jobs that have resulted from your automation.
Editing your Automation
From the Automation Details screen, just click on the “Edit Automation” button at the top. This will open the automation wizard again, allowing you to edit the individual trigger settings.
Change Triggers
If you want to change your trigger to be something different, click on the Gear icon and select “Change Trigger”
Edit Condition
If you want to change the conditions for a trigger, click on the Gear icon and select “Edit Condition”
Delete Trigger
If you have more than one trigger on an automation, you can remove a trigger, by clicking on the Gear icon and selecting “Delete”
Editing and Deleting Filters
If you have filters in your automation, you can edit or delete them by clicking on the gear icon next to the filter block and selecting the option from the dropdown.
Saving your changes
Once you are happy with your changes, Click on the edit icon in the Review and name the automation section. Here you can optionally edit the name of your automation, and save any changes.
Automation Jobs
From within the Automation Details screen, you can see what jobs have been run using your automation.
Clicking the title will give you more details about the job, such as its status, and its % completion.
Clicking the and selecting “View Asset” will let you go to the Asset associated with the job.
Enabling and Disabling automations
Next to each automation in the list is a Status toggle to turn that automation on or off. If it is off, it will not trigger when trigger conditions are met.
Deleting an automation
From the main list of automations, you can select the button and choose ‘Delete Automation…”
Then confirm deletion in the resulting window.
Manually running an automation
Automations with at least one delayed trigger, (ie asset created X days ago, asset modified X days ago) may be triggered manually, allowing you to activate the next steps of an automation with the click of a button.
To manually run this kind of automation, ensure it is Active, then open the Details screen by clicking on the title.
Click the gear button in the top right corner, and choose ‘Run Automation…’ from the dropdown, and confirm your choice.
This will run the automation by skipping the trigger step, and will affect any items that meet your filter criteria.
Chaining Automations
Sometimes you may want to automate a series of actions in iconik. This is possible by simply using the action of one automation as the trigger for another.
Example:
Create an automation with the setup 'If Asset is new, Update metadata.” to set the metadata for a text field called “IsNew?” on all new items to “true”...
And then create a second automation with the setup “If Metadata is changed, Set ACL on asset to update the ACL on items with IsNew? = True.
This will mean a new asset will have its metadata changed, and then the second automation will kick in, changing the ACL on it as well.
Loops
Currently iconik does not allow for creating loops, where an automation triggers another which then triggers the first. If an automation causes itself to execute or another action in an automation chain causes the original automation to trigger, the system will detect this, and the loop will be broken and reported back as a skipped job in the Jobs dashboard.
Best Practices
Creating Automations
- Automations connects existing iconik features together to build a workflow. When considering what automations connect, think about how to “save clicks”. If users are routinely performing the same series of actions, it might be a good use case for automations.
- Have a whiteboard session to map out your automations visually. This can help determine additional use cases and serves as a foundation for your own documentation.
- Test your automation! When you configure an automation, give it a test run on a single asset to determine if the results are in line with your expectations.
Examples of Automations
Automatic File Movement
If you have footage being uploaded from a remote location, but your edit is happening in your office, you can set up an automation to transfer anything uploaded to a specific collection to be transferred to an ISG in your office. This can save you time in various ways. By automating the transfer, files are being added to the local storage for edit as soon as they are available in the cloud. This means a human doesn’t have to babysit the upload, waiting to initiate the transfer.
Automatic Archiving
Archiving in iconik means you can move data to less expensive storage, such as AWS Glacier, while retaining full functionality of your assets in the UI. You can create an archive workflow, based on date modified or date created. This will help clear off space from your high-performance storage, enabling you to have more predictable costs.
User-Triggered Workflows
If you want a user to be able to trigger a change, such as modifying ACLs, you can create an automation that is triggered by a metadata field change. Something as simple as a yes/no toggle can enable a user to give access to users or groups, without having to perform any administrative functions.