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Before you start building, it’s worth understanding how RCB Automation is structured. The platform is built around a small set of interconnected concepts. Once you understand how they relate to each other, building even complex automations becomes straightforward. This page covers each concept, what it does, and how it fits into the bigger picture.

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The building blocks

Workflows

A workflow is the primary unit of automation in RCB Automation. It’s a defined sequence of steps — a trigger, optional conditions, and one or more actions — that executes automatically when the trigger fires.Think of a workflow as a process you’ve written down and handed off to the platform. Once it’s active, it runs without manual intervention every time the trigger condition is met.Key things to know about workflows:
  • Workflows can be in Draft, Active, or Paused states. Only active workflows run automatically.
  • You can duplicate a workflow to use it as a starting point for a similar automation.
  • Workflows support branching, so different paths can execute depending on conditions.
  • Every workflow has an isolated run history so you can track its behavior independently.
Keep workflows focused on a single outcome. Instead of building one large workflow that does many things, consider splitting complex processes into smaller workflows that trigger each other. This makes them easier to test, debug, and maintain.
A trigger is the event that starts a workflow. Without a trigger, a workflow has no way to know when to run. Every workflow must have exactly one trigger.RCB Automation supports the following trigger types:
Trigger typeWhen it fires
ScheduleAt a recurring time interval (daily, weekly, hourly, or a custom cron expression)
Form submissionWhen a form connected to RCB Automation receives a new submission
WebhookWhen an external system sends an HTTP request to the workflow’s webhook URL
Record created / updatedWhen a record in a connected integration changes
Inbound emailWhen an email arrives at the workflow’s assigned address
ManualWhen a user clicks Run now from the dashboard or API
The trigger also supplies data to the workflow. For example, a form submission trigger passes along the submitted field values, which you can use as variables in later steps.
You can change a workflow’s trigger type at any time. Existing steps and their configurations are preserved — only the trigger itself changes.
An action is a step that performs work: sending a message, updating a record, making an API call, creating a file, and so on. A workflow can have one action or many, and they execute in the order you define them on the canvas.Actions in RCB Automation fall into a few categories:
  • Integration actions — Interact with a connected app (e.g., create a row in a Google Sheet, post a message to Slack, update a contact in a CRM).
  • Communication actions — Send emails, SMS messages, or notifications.
  • Data actions — Transform, filter, or format data as it moves through the workflow.
  • HTTP actions — Make arbitrary HTTP requests to any API endpoint.
  • Flow control actions — Add delays, loop over a list, or trigger a child workflow.
Each action receives inputs — either fixed values you configure or dynamic variables from previous steps — and produces outputs that subsequent steps can use.
Use the HTTP request action to connect to any system that isn’t available as a built-in integration. Most modern software exposes a REST API.
A condition is a logic gate you place in a workflow to control whether subsequent steps run. If the condition evaluates to true, the workflow continues down that path. If it evaluates to false, the workflow either stops or follows an alternative branch.You can build conditions using:
  • Field comparisons — Check whether a value equals, contains, is greater than, or matches a pattern.
  • Logical operators — Combine multiple checks with AND / OR.
  • Computed values — Reference outputs from previous steps.
Conditions enable branching: you can create multiple paths in a workflow that execute different actions depending on the data. For example, route high-priority tickets to one team and standard tickets to another based on a field value.
When a condition is not met and no alternative branch is defined, the workflow run ends and is marked Skipped — not Failed. Skipped runs are expected behavior when conditions intentionally filter out certain events.
A run is a single execution of a workflow. Every time a trigger fires and the workflow executes, a new run is created and recorded.Each run has:
  • A status: Success, Failed, or Skipped
  • A start time and duration
  • A step-by-step trace showing the inputs, outputs, and status of each step
  • An error message if any step failed, including the exact point of failure
Runs are immutable records — they don’t change after the workflow executes. This gives you a reliable audit trail of everything the platform has done.
RCB Automation retains run history according to your plan limits. Check your account settings to see your current retention period.
The activity log is the central view for monitoring all workflow runs across your account. It’s where you go to verify that automations ran as expected, investigate failures, and understand your platform’s overall health.From the activity log, you can:
  • Filter runs by workflow, status, date range, or integration
  • Click into any run to see the full step-by-step trace
  • Re-run a failed workflow from the same trigger payload
  • Export run data for reporting or auditing
The activity log is available at the account level (showing runs across all workflows) and at the individual workflow level (showing runs for that workflow only).
When debugging a failed workflow, start by clicking the failed step in the run trace. The error panel shows the exact input data the step received and the error message returned, which is usually enough to identify the problem.
An integration is a connection between RCB Automation and an external application or service. Integrations are what give your workflows access to real data and the ability to take action in other systems.Integrations work in two directions:
  • As a trigger source — The integration notifies RCB Automation when something happens (e.g., a new row is added to a spreadsheet, a contact is updated in a CRM).
  • As an action target — The workflow sends data or commands to the integration (e.g., create a task, send a message, update a record).
RCB Automation provides pre-built connectors for common business tools. You connect an integration once under Integrations in the sidebar, then it becomes available as a trigger or action in any workflow.For systems without a pre-built connector, use the Webhook trigger to receive events or the HTTP request action to send data.
Each integration connection is authenticated separately. If your credentials expire or are revoked, any workflows using that integration will fail until you reconnect it. RCB Automation will notify you when a connection needs attention.

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How it all fits together

Here’s a concrete example to tie the concepts together. Imagine you want to automatically notify your team in Slack when a high-value deal is created in your CRM:
  1. Trigger — A new deal is created in the CRM (integration trigger).
  2. Condition — Check whether the deal value is greater than $10,000.
  3. Action — If the condition passes, post a message to the #sales Slack channel with the deal name and value.
  4. Run recorded — The execution is logged in the activity log with the deal data and the Slack response.
That’s one workflow, four concepts. Most automations you build in RCB Automation follow this same pattern, with variations in the trigger type, the number of conditions, and the actions taken.

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Next steps

Quickstart

Follow a step-by-step guide to build and activate your first workflow.

Workflows

Learn how to create, configure, and manage workflows in detail.

Triggers

Explore all available trigger types and how to configure them.

Integrations

Browse available connectors and learn how to set up a new integration.