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03 The logic behind automations

Marie Xhauflair avatar
Written by Marie Xhauflair
Updated yesterday

Automations help you trigger actions based on specific events and conditions. You can use them to unlock content, grant badges, send notifications, and more, without needing to manage each learner manually.


Learning objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Explain the three building blocks of automation logic

  • Use “and” and “or” conditions to refine when actions happen

  • Apply condition groups for more advanced setups

  • Identify examples of common actions triggered by automations


The three building blocks

Every automation is made of three elements:

  1. Event type: what starts the automation

  2. Condition: rules that must be true before the action happens

  3. Action: what the system will do

Together, they follow this logic:

When the event happens, if the conditions are met, then perform the action.


Event type

  • A event type is what tells your platform to check whether an automation should run.

  • For beginners, we recommend using Check periodically.

    • This means the platform checks every hour if users meet the conditions you have set.

Tip:

Do not worry about notifications here. We will see later that notifications work differently and do not depend on this setting.


Condition

Conditions are the rules that define when the action should happen.

“And”

All conditions must be true for the action to happen

  • Use: when all conditions must be true before the action is triggered.

  • Example: The user is in Group A and has completed Activity X.

“Or”

Any one of the conditions must be true

  • Use: when learners only need to meet one of the conditions.

  • Example: The learner is in Group A or Group B.


➕ Use condition groups for advanced logic

Sometimes you need more complex logic than a single “and” or “or” can provide. For this, you can create condition groups.

  • Use: when you want to mix “and” with “or” in the same automation.

  • Tip: Think of condition groups as putting parentheses around rules. This lets you group conditions together before combining them with others.

  • Example: (User is in Group A or Group B) and (has completed Activity X).


Actions

The action is what happens when the event type and conditions are met.

Examples of actions include:

  • Assigning a new activity

  • Adding a learner to a group

  • Unlocking new content

Actions are always the final step in the automation.


General translation formula

Every automation can be read as a sentence:

  • When [trigger] and if [condition(s)] then [action(s)].

This helps learners translate automations into plain language, even without technical knowledge.


Recap

In this lesson, you learned:

  1. Event types start the automation, conditions refine it, and actions complete it

  2. “And” requires all conditions to be true, while “Or” needs only one

  3. Condition groups let you combine both logics for more advanced setups

  4. Actions are the final result, such as assigning content, unlocking items, or moving learners into groups


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