Creating an automation from an idea

An automation consists of a sequence of related, interconnected activities. An activity is the basic building block of an automation, representing a step or a task in a workflow that you can automate.

To create an automation:

1. Break down the idea you want to automate into each of its individual steps, decide what should trigger the automation, and identify all the apps and services you use in it.
2. Create a project in Studio Web. Make sure to check out the available templates, you may find one that fits your scenario and save time and effort by not starting from scratch.
3. Identify the activities that enable you to automate each of the steps, add them to your project and configure them in the project designer.
4. Test your project. It may not run successfully from the first try and you may need to make adjustments and run it a few times before you get it to work as you want it to.
5. Publish your project to make it available as an automation. If it uses an event trigger or a time trigger, the automation will run automatically.

Example of creating an automation

An idea can be as simple as "I want every canceled event to be automatically removed from my Outlook calendar".

Breaking down the process and how we can automate it, we want to:

• Automate the Outlook calendar, so we will use Microsoft Office 365 activities.
• Run the automation whenever a calendar event is updated, so the automation will be triggered by the Calendar Event Updated event.
• Remove an event only if it was canceled, so we will add a condition to only process the event if it has been canceled using an If activity. and then add a Delete Event activity to remove it from our calendar if the condition is met.

Build the automation

1. Go to the Automations page in Studio Web and create a new project. For the trigger, select the Microsoft 365 event Calendar Event Updated. The trigger activity is added to the project.
2. In the Calendar Event Updated activity, add or select a connection.
3. Click Add activity after the trigger and add an If activity.

   This activity enables you to define a condition, then add activities to execute when the condition is met inside the Then branch, and optionally activities to execute when the condition is not met in the Else branch. For our scenario, we need the condition the event is canceled and we will only use the Then branch to add an activity to delete the event when the condition is met.

4. In the If activity, click the Condition field to open the Condition builder:

   1. In the first field, we want to find the IsCancelled event property for the event that triggered the automation. We can search for the text cancel, or select See more > Use variable > Calendar Event Updated > Event > IsCancelled.
   2. In the second field, select is true.
      
      

      

      
      
5. Click Add activity in the Then box and add a Microsoft 365 Delete Event activity. We will configure it to delete the event that triggered the automation.
   1. Add or select a connection.
   2. Event to delete - Click and select Calendar Event Updated > Event to indicate that you want to delete the event. Because this activity is added inside the Then branch, the event will be deleted only if it was canceled.
   3. Delete - Select Single event only to only delete the occurrence, if the event is recurring.
      
      

      

      
      

Test the automation

To test the automation, make sure a recently canceled event exists in your Outlook calendar. You can select Test trigger in the trigger activity to check whether you have at least one event that was recently updated.

Click Test at the top of the designer to test the automation, and check you calendar to see if the canceled event has been removed.

Publish the automation

If the automation works as expected, all you need to do in order for it to run is to publish it to your personal workspace. Click Publish at the top of the designer, enter a suggestive name and description, and click Publish.