Actions & Workflows

Actions are buttons with logic behind them — how an app does more than "edit a field and save." Open a collection's Actions tab, click Add Action, give it a label, an icon, a colour, and pick a type.

Every collection starts with Edit, Delete, and Create already set up — anything beyond that is yours to add.

Data actions

These read or write your records directly:

• Set fields — update one or more fields on the current record, each to the result of a formula (a literal value, a calculation, or a copy of another field).
• Delete record — remove the current record.
• Create record in table — create a new record in another collection, with each of its fields set from a formula evaluated against the current record (e.g. carry the current record's id over to link back to it).
• Bulk delete / Bulk create records / Bulk set fields — the same ideas, but applied to every record matched by a query instead of just one — "every cart item," "every overdue invoice."
• Form action — opens a small dialog collecting one or more inputs from the person first, then applies field updates that can reference what they entered. The inputs are full fields — they support the same types (including image and geolocation) and the same show/validate rules as a regular schema field.

App actions

These navigate or chain other actions instead of touching data:

• View detail / Edit record / Create record / Go to list — jump to a different page within the app.
• View ref detail — follow a reference field on the current record straight to what it points to.
• Run actions — run a sequence of other actions in order, one after another. This is how multi-step workflows ("remove stock, record the sale, clear the cart, go to sales") are built from smaller, reusable pieces.
• Export PDF — render an HTML template (with the record's own fields, and loops over related records) into a downloadable PDF — invoices, receipts, reports.
• Open create — open the create form for another collection with fields pre-filled from formulas.

External actions

For leaving the app entirely — Phone call, Email, and Open URL actions open the device's dialer, mail client, or browser, built from a formula (e.g. CONCATENATE("tel:", {phone})).

Showing an action only sometimes

Any action can have a Show only if formula — the button disappears unless it evaluates to true. This is how you model "only show 'Add Stock' if there's no stock record yet," or "only allow 'Make Sale' if the cart isn't empty," without writing code.

Running automatically

By default an action runs when its button is clicked. Change When does this run? to have it fire automatically instead — right after a record on this collection is created, updated, or deleted — with no button shown at all. This is how you attach follow-up logic to every save, without relying on someone to remember to click something.

Confirmation

Turn on Require confirmation before running for anything destructive or high-stakes — it shows a confirmation dialog with a custom message before the action actually runs.

Where it shows up

Most actions are record-level — they show up per row or on a record's detail page. Turn on Collection-level action to make it available on dashboard panels instead, where it isn't tied to any single record.