Automations
Understand how Automations works in Ona, from the clinic-wide on/off setting to building flows, testing them, and reviewing runs. Use this article to learn what each part of the Automations area is for and when to use it.
Automations lives in Automations in the left sidebar, with a clinic-wide control in Settings. It lets your clinic react automatically when something happens, such as a booked visit, a new lead, a patient birthday, a referral, or a task event.
What is Automations?
In Automations in the left sidebar, Automations is the clinic-wide area for building, monitoring and reviewing automated workflows.
Use Overview (1) to monitor activity across the clinic, New automation (2) to start a new flow, Live / Paused / Drafts (3) to find saved automations by status, and Logs (4) to review what ran.
Automations has two connected parts:
| Place | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Settings | Turns automations on or off for the whole clinic. When automations are enabled, the settings page also gives you a link to open the main Automations area. |
| Overview | Shows clinic-wide stats such as Since the start, Runs per week, and Latest runs. It also surfaces failed runs with a link to See the failed runs. |
| New automation | Starts a new automation, either blank or from a starting point. |
| An automation in Live, Paused, or Drafts | Opens the visual editor, where you build the flow and adjust its settings. |
| Logs | Shows run history so you can review what happened after an automation started. |
The clinic-wide setting matters most. If automations are off for the clinic, no run starts until they are switched back on in Settings.
On Overview, the dashboard focuses on totals since the start, runs per week, the latest runs, and failed runs that need attention. It also compares which automations ran most in the selected date range.
When should I use it?
Use Automations in the left sidebar when the same follow-up should happen the same way every time.
Automations is a good fit for repeatable, rule-based work. For example, you might want a Visit booked trigger to send a reminder, a Patient birthday trigger to send a message, a lead event to create a task, or a patient event to add or remove a tag.
It is most useful when your team wants consistency. Instead of remembering each follow-up by hand, you define the rule once and let the automation run the same logic every time that event happens.
It is less useful for one-off work or decisions that need a person to review the case first. If the next step depends on judgment rather than a clear rule, keep that step manual.
How does it work?
In Automations in the left sidebar, each automation starts with one trigger and then runs through the blocks you place on the canvas.
Use the Blocks panel (1) to choose what to add, the Canvas (2) to build the flow, the Properties panel (3) to configure the selected trigger or step, and Simulate (4) to test the flow without sending anything or changing records.
Every automation starts with one trigger. The editor offers trigger groups for events such as leads, patients, visits, memberships, communication, referrals and tasks. A trigger can also be narrowed so it only starts for selected clinic records, such as specific services, clinicians or locations.
After the trigger, you build the flow from logic blocks and action blocks.
| Block type | What it does |
|---|---|
| If / else | Branches into one lane per value, such as visit status, service, clinician, location, and whether the patient has a tag, membership, form, consent, interview, or marketing consent. |
| Split into paths | Runs several paths at the same time. |
| Wait blocks | Delay the next step for a duration, until a time of day, before a visit, or after a visit. |
| Messaging blocks | Send SMS, email, chat messages, or staff notifications. |
| CRM blocks | Add or remove a patient tag, create a task, assign a task, change a lead stage, add a lead note or activity, assign a lead, convert a lead to a patient, or assign a patient to a clinician. |
| Patient action blocks | Send a patient portal invitation, form, consent, or interview. |
| Promotion blocks | Create a promo code or attach one for later use. |
| Selected blocks open in Properties, where you set the details that matter. For example, a message block can hold a subject or message text, a task can hold a title and assignee, and a wait block can hold its timing. Message and task text can use variables from the trigger, such as first name, service, clinician, visit date and visit time, and some steps can save values for later steps to use. |
Simulation is built into the editor. The Simulation panel lets you try the automation on a real matching visit, patient or lead. It uses the record's values, shows what would happen step by step, and can preview what a message would say. If the record does not meet the trigger rules, the panel says This automation would not start. The most important safety point is the one shown in the simulation itself: nothing is sent and nothing is changed.
Saved automations are grouped in the rail as Drafts, Live, and Paused. Those groups reflect the automation's saved status: draft, published, or paused. If your published version and saved draft differ, the editor can also keep those unpublished changes separate and revert the draft back to the published version.
After an automation is live, the monitoring tools move to Overview and Logs. Overview shows totals, weekly run volume, recent runs, and warnings when runs fail. Logs is the place to review individual runs and inspect what happened after a trigger fired, including the steps the run took and any failures that stopped it.
What are the limits?
In Settings and Automations, a few rules shape what you can do.
- If automations are turned off for the clinic, no run starts. Opening the Automations area sends you back to the Automations settings page until the clinic setting is turned on again.
- The Automations settings page itself is feature-gated. If Automations is not available for you yet, the page shows Automations aren't available yet.
- An automation cannot be built without a trigger. Before you choose one, the editor keeps the other blocks inactive.
- Send steps can be skipped when the needed contact detail or consent is missing. In simulation, you can see that a step would not send because the record has no mobile number, no email address, or no SMS or email consent.
Common questions
What is the difference between the clinic setting and a live automation?
In Settings, the clinic setting controls whether any automation is allowed to start at all. In Automations, a workflow in Live is one published automation that is ready to run when that clinic setting is on.
Does simulation send messages or update records?
No. In the Simulation panel, nothing is sent and nothing is changed.
What happens if I delete an automation?
In Automations, deleting an automation stops new runs from starting from it. Runs that are already in progress finish on the version they started with, and their history stays available.
Why would a message step be skipped?
In an automation run, a message step can be skipped when the patient or lead does not have the needed phone number, email address, or consent for that channel.
Why didn't an automation start?
In the Simulation panel, an automation does not start when the selected record does not match the trigger's filters. For example, the trigger can be limited to selected services, clinicians, or locations.
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