An automator is a guided workflow — a sequence of tasks, decisions, waits, and emails — that runs automatically as a deal moves through your pipeline, or that a teammate starts by hand on a specific deal. Automators are what make sure the right person gets a task, the right email goes out, and a deal's status updates itself, without anyone having to remember to do it.
Purple and teal
Throughout the app, purple marks anything about an automator itself — the Automators icon, automator buttons, and automator progress bars. Teal marks the deal's own state — its status, and most everyday action buttons. If something purple is on screen, it's an automator doing (or about to do) something; if it's teal, it's about where the deal itself stands.
The Automators list
Open Settings → Automators to see every automator your team has built. A brand-new team starts with just one here — New Buyer Verification, which welcomes and vets every new buyer. Every other TED library automator is yours to install one at a time from the TED Library below, so you can see how each runs before adding more. If your list is ever empty, the empty state links straight down to that section. The card header shows a running total — "N running across N automators" — so you can tell at a glance whether anything's mid-flight without opening the Team Runs dashboard. Each row shows a status badge — Draft, Published v1 (or whichever version number is live), Published v1 · draft edits (an amber dot means someone has unsaved changes on top of the published version), or Archived — plus which trigger starts it and, if it's tied to one, which pipeline stage. A search box and status/trigger/stage filters sit above the list. A row that has ever run also shows its own N active · N done — click it to jump to that automator's runs on the Team Runs dashboard; a row with no runs yet shows nothing there.
Archived automators stay out of the way. The list opens on All active — published and draft automators only — and the automator count in the card header leaves archived ones out. (The running count still includes every run in progress, even on an archived automator: archiving stops new runs but lets one already underway finish.) When your team has archived automators, a quiet line under the list says so — for example "1 archived automator hidden (1 still running) · Show". Click Show, or pick Archived in the status filter, to see them; that view is where Unarchive lives. The filter isn't remembered, so each visit starts on All active again.
Every row also shows a lane chip — the role that owns that automator (its home role, set in the builder — a never-published draft shows the role you've picked for it too), or Unassigned if it doesn't have one yet. Above the list, a My lanes | All lanes toggle plus a role picker let you narrow the list down. If you hold a role that owns at least one of the team's automators, the page opens on "My lanes" — your own lane(s) plus any unassigned automator (nobody's lane to exclude) — so a manager holding several roles isn't dropped into every lane's automators at once. If none of your roles own an automator (for example, your only role is Full Access), the page opens on All lanes instead of an empty list. If your own role is scoped to My lanes, that's the only option — there's no "All lanes" to switch to. A role scoped to All lanes (or a team admin) sees the toggle and can flip to "All lanes" or "My lanes", or pick any single lane from the dropdown; whichever you pick with the toggle is remembered for that team, so it's still there next time you open this page or come back after a reload. If "My lanes" leaves nothing to show, the empty state for anyone with the toggle offers a Show all lanes button to see what the team has built. A role scoped to My lanes with no toggle sees the plain "no automators in your lane" message instead — same as above, they have no "All lanes" to switch to. If the whole team has zero automators, the empty state points you at the New Automator button and the TED Library below instead.
My lanes limits what you can build and start, not what you can see.
Select a row to open it in the builder — see Building an automator. The row's own menu (⋯, at the right end of every row) also has Edit details…, Duplicate, Version history, and Archive/Unarchive; a never-published draft gets Delete instead of Duplicate/Version history/Archive. Delete asks you to confirm, then removes the draft for good. Anyone who can build automators — a team admin, or a role with the Automators row set to Edit — can edit the details of, or delete, a never-published draft.
Duplicate opens a copy as a new, never-published automator in the builder. The copy keeps the original's steps, home stage and home role. If your role can only build automators for My lanes and you don't hold the original's home role, the copy keeps its home stage but not the role — pick one of yours in the builder.
Edit details… changes an automator's name and the description shown under it in the list, on both a published automator and a never-published draft. Changes save straight away — no publish needed. Names have to be unique on your team, so a taken name shows an error instead of saving. Descriptions can be up to 500 characters; clear the box to remove one, and the row shows "No description". Previewing an automator against a real deal isn't available from this list — open the automator and use its own Preview button instead (see Publishing an automator).
Map view
Once your team has at least one automator, a List | Map toggle appears above the list. Map shows a read-only diagram of which automators call into which — built from any "Sub-automator" steps or "Trigger Automator" actions inside your automators, so you can see a whole chain (and who owns each link in it) at a glance instead of having to open every automator to find out.
- Archived automators are left off the map unless the list's status filter is set to Archived. (The Published and Draft filters only change the list — the map keeps showing everything that isn't archived.) If an active automator calls an archived one, the link still shows, with the archived automator drawn as a dimmed Archived card.
- Each card is one automator; an arrow from one card to another means the first one triggers the second, either directly (a "Sub-automator" step) or via a "Trigger Automator" action.
- A card badged with a trigger (like Contract Executed or Deal created) is an entry point — the event that starts that chain in the first place.
- If an automator points at one that's since been deleted, you'll see a dashed amber Missing automator card instead of the chain silently stopping — that's a broken reference worth fixing.
- Automators that aren't chained to anything are grouped in a Not chained section below the diagram, so the map stays honest about what's standalone versus connected.
- Click any card to open that automator in the builder, same as clicking its row in the list. The map itself is read-only — you can't rewire chains from here.
Installing from the TED library
Below the list, TED Library shows every automator TED has built and published for teams to use, grouped under TC, Dispo, or Unassigned headings by which role each one is built for, each marked with a purple TED badge, its lane chip, and its home pipeline stage (or Situational if it doesn't belong to one). The card starts collapsed whenever your team has automators on its list (a brand-new team already has New Buyer Verification) — click its header to expand it, and your choice is remembered next time you visit. A team with an empty list sees it expanded automatically.
Apart from New Buyer Verification, which a new team gets from the start, none of the library automators install themselves — if your team hasn't installed one yet, and you can build automators (see Roles and permissions — a team admin, or a role with the Automators row set to Edit), you'll see an Install button. An installed row's Installed badge is a link to your team's own copy — click it to open what you actually got (and everyone on the team can click through to view it, whether or not they can build). The same builders also get a row menu (⋯) with Edit your copy, which opens the same place, and Uninstall, which removes it from your Automators list entirely and turns the library row back to Install — so you can try one, play with it, and remove it with no commitment. If an installed automator has already run on a deal, Uninstall is refused — use Archive on its row in the list instead, so that run history stays intact. A role scoped to My lanes can only install a library automator whose home role is one they hold; All lanes can install any of them.
When TED updates a library automator your team has installed, a card appears above the list. Depending on what you customized:
- If you never touched the automator's steps, it updates on its own — no action needed.
- If you customized it, you'll see Review & adopt, which opens a before/after list of what changed step by step so you can decide, or Dismiss to keep what you have.
- An installed pipeline template (see Customizing your pipeline stages) only ever notifies you of an update — there's nothing to adopt, since your team's stages and statuses are yours to keep as configured.
Common issues
- Can't find "Install" or the library row's ⋯ menu — you need Automators: Edit (a team admin has this automatically); ask a team admin to grant it on your role, or to install it for you. Anyone can still click an Installed badge to view the team's copy.
- "Uninstall" gives an error about run history — the automator has already run on at least one deal, so uninstalling would lose that history. Use Archive on its row in the Automators list instead — it's reversible via Unarchive and keeps every past run intact.
- An automator disappeared from the list after you archived it — that's expected: archived automators are hidden by default. Click Show in the note under the list (or choose Archived in the status filter), then Unarchive it from its ⋯ menu to bring it back.
- "That draft was already deleted." — someone deleted or published it a moment before you (maybe you, in another tab), or TED cleaned it up because it was left empty. There's nothing more to do; the list refreshes without it.
- "You don't have permission to delete this draft. Ask a team admin." (or "…to edit this draft…") — your role doesn't have the Automators row set to Edit. Ask a team admin to grant it, or to delete or edit the draft for you.