Triggers
A trigger decides when a flow runs. It waits for an event, such as a schedule coming due, a request arriving at a URL or a new record in Tables, and starts the flow each time that event happens. The data that came with the event becomes the trigger's output, so the steps after it can use it.
Adding a trigger
On a new flow, click Add trigger and use Choose a trigger. Search for an app or event, pick the app, then pick one of its events. The full list is in the Trigger catalog.
Triggers fall into three groups.
Built-in
These come with AI Studio and need no other product.
| Trigger | Starts the flow when… |
|---|---|
| Manual | You click Run in the editor. Use it while building and testing. |
| Webhook | Another system sends a POST request to the flow's webhook URL. See Start a flow from a webhook. |
| Schedule | A time comes round: every hour, day, week or month, on a custom pattern, or on a cron expression. See Run a flow on a schedule. |
| An email arrives at an inbox address generated for the flow. | |
| Sub Flow | Another flow calls this one with Call Sub Flow. See Call a subflow. |
DECA Cloud
Events from other DECA products in your organization, for example:
- Forms: someone submits a response.
- Tables: a record is created, updated or deleted. Changes to bases, tables and fields are events too.
- CRM: a record or attachment is created, updated or deleted, or someone clicks a custom action button.
- Chatbot and LiveChat: a message is sent or received, or a conversation is opened, closed or reassigned.
- Knowledge Base: an article, document or folder is created, updated or deleted.
Apps
Events from outside services, such as a new message in Slack, a Google Calendar event, or a Zoom meeting. Most of these need two things: a credential for the service, and a callback URL that you paste into the service's own settings. The trigger's settings panel shows the URL with a copy button.
More than one trigger
A flow can have several triggers. The flow runs whenever any of them fires, and only the trigger that fired passes data on. For example, you could start the same "notify the team" flow from both a form submission and a Slack message.
A few limits apply:
- Manual and Sub Flow can each appear only once in a flow. The picker shows Already in flow if you try to add a second one.
- For DECA Cloud triggers, each event can be used by only one trigger in a flow. The picker shows Already used by another trigger.
Using the trigger's data
Each trigger outputs the data of the event that started the flow. For a Slack message it's the text, the channel and the sender. For a webhook it's the JSON body of the request. For a schedule it's the date and time the run was due.
To use it in a step, type $ in a field and choose Current Trigger. If the flow has several triggers, Current Trigger always means the one that fired for this run. See Using data from earlier steps.
The output fields of every event are listed in the Trigger catalog.
When triggers are live
Editing a trigger in a draft doesn't change what runs. Webhook, schedule and event triggers start the published version of the flow, so publish after you change them. See Versions and publishing.