Automations

An automation is a standing instruction: a job you describe once that Mercora then runs for you. “Every weekday at 7:00, list the invoices that went overdue yesterday.” “When a freight invoice finishes processing, check it against the agreed rates and propose the deduction.” This page helps you build one, test it, and act on what it finds. Each automation has three parts:

• When it runs: its trigger, such as a schedule or a document arriving.
• Steps: what it does, in order. An AI step works something out; other steps ask a person, check a condition or wait.
• Uses: the data areas and connected apps it may read, and where it may propose changes.

An automation reads on its own, but it never changes your records or sends anything without a person’s approval. Every proposed change becomes an item in the Inbox that waits for Approve.

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Who can do what

Two separate permissions control automations: So a finance lead can review findings without being able to change the automation, and an operator can build automations without seeing results outside their own access. See Roles and permissions.

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Owner and who can see it

Every automation has an Owner. A run acts as its owner: it can only read what the owner’s role can read, and only within the areas the automation’s Uses allow. The owner also approves what the automation proposes and answers its questions, and a workspace admin can always step in. Under More settings, Who can see it is either the owner and workspace admins (the default; the automation shows a Private tag) or Everyone in the workspace. A private automation, its runs and its Inbox items are invisible to everyone else.

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Find your automations

Click Automations in the sidebar. The list on the left groups automations as Waiting for you, On and Off, with a search box and New automation. Pick one to open it on the right, with two tabs: Runs (what it did) and Steps (what it does).

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Create an automation

You can also start from a Copilot chat: Make this an automation under an answer drafts one from what the chat did. See Copilot.

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Triggers

Document and message triggers only count what arrives after the automation is switched on.

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Calling an automation from your own systems

With When another system calls, save the automation once to get its address, shown as POST /api/v1/agents/<id>/run with a Copy button. Your system calls it with a workspace API key that has the automations scope. The run works in Mercora, and anything it would change still waits for a person there. If a step waits for your system, your system answers through the run’s callback. See the API reference and API keys.

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Email, Teams and WhatsApp triggers

A message goes to one place only, so a recap is never captured twice:

• Email. Only an admin can save an email trigger. An email that matches its filters goes to the automation instead of to Deal Capture or vessel nominations. Emails from registered freight carriers stay with Freight Rates. With no filter at all, every email that isn’t from a carrier goes to the automation. If no run could start, the email carries on to Deal Capture as usual.
• Teams. An admin sets a channel or group chat to Automations under Settings → Integrations → Microsoft 365, in Chats and channels. A channel set to Automations no longer goes to Deal Capture. See Microsoft 365.
• WhatsApp. An admin switches a group on under Groups for automations in Settings → Integrations → WhatsApp. Hedge groups are never offered. See WhatsApp.

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Steps

Click Add a step to see what you can add. Steps your role or workspace can’t use are shown with the reason. App actions are available only once an admin has connected the app and switched those actions on under Settings → Integrations. Every app action starts off. See Integrations.

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Test before you switch on

Test runs the automation’s steps on real data, as you, within the areas the automation may use. For a document trigger you pick a recent document to try it on, such as Veltana’s B/L RCLLCH2607841; for an API trigger you pick a recent call or paste a body; for a message trigger you pick a recent message or type one. During a test:

• Reads are real.
• Any change the automation proposes is held and shown as the card the approver would see. It is never made.
• An Ask someone to approve step counts as approved, and is marked so.
• A question is shown unanswered.

The result is shown under the steps, tagged as a test, and ends with “Nothing was sent or saved”.

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Runs and results

The Runs tab lists the newest runs, most telling first:

• A waiting run shows what it waits for first, such as the approval card, with the steps folded into one line.
• A finished run shows its answer, each step on one line, and any calculation it made. Continue in Copilot opens the result in a chat, Rerun runs it again on the same input with an optional note for the AI, and Save as PDF prints the answer.
• A failed run leads with the step that failed and why.

Editing a live automation saves a new version. Runs already under way keep the version they started with; new runs use the latest. Versions in the ⋯ menu lists every saved version and opens its steps read-only.

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What reaches the Inbox

An automation files its work in the Inbox, under Needs you:

• A finding it reported, or an Automation failed card.
• Each change it proposes, with an Approve chip.
• Each question it asks, with an Answer chip.

A clean run that found nothing files nothing, so a quiet automation doesn’t fill the Inbox. See The Inbox.

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Approve what an automation proposes

Each proposed change is one Inbox item. The card shows the change, the record it touches, why the automation suggested it, and the evidence it used, such as its calculations and the source document.

• Approve makes exactly that change. For anything that leaves Mercora, the button reads Approve and send (a message) or Approve and run (another action outside Mercora).
• Edit lets you change the values, then Save and approve.
• Reject makes no change. You can add a reason.

Only the owner or a workspace admin can decide. Everyone else who can see the automation sees who it is waiting for. Once an automation has a few decisions, the card also shows how often its proposals were approved as drafted. A request that nobody decides eventually ends, and the card shows the date ahead of time. When it ends, nothing is changed. For example, an automation that checks supplier invoices against their contracts might propose changing the due date on Kanchana Siam Sugar’s invoice KSS-INV-26-0288 to match the payment terms of purchase contract VCS-P-2026-0688. The card shows the due date before and after, why it was suggested, and the contract it used as evidence. Nothing changes until someone who may decide clicks Approve. For a question, pick one of the suggested answers, or Something else and type your own, then click Answer.

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Approve from your phone

If you switched on WhatsApp under Settings → Notifications and linked your number, approvals and questions waiting for you are also sent to your WhatsApp, each with a number. Reply with: Your reply is recorded exactly like a click in the Inbox. A number you weren’t sent decides nothing. This needs your workspace’s WhatsApp to be set up and sending turned on. See WhatsApp.

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Switch off or archive

From the ⋯ menu, Switch off stops new runs, and Archive removes the automation from the list. Its runs and decisions stay. If the Automations module is turned off, no new runs start, and existing results stay available to people who may see them.

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Next steps