# How to Build an Automation With AVA

> Describe what you want to happen. AVA builds the flow, tests it, and activates it. No configuration menus.
> Help → AVA AI → How to Build an Automation With AVA

URL: https://thatapp.io/help/ava-ai/ava-build-automations
Category: AVA AI — Your Organizational Brain

---

---

Describe what you want to happen. AVA builds the automation.

**Step 1: Describe the trigger and the action**

Tell AVA what should happen and when. For example:

> "When a Salesforce opportunity moves to Closed Won, send me a Slack message with the deal name and amount."

> "Every Monday morning, generate a status report from our open Podio projects and email it to the team."

> "When a new contact is added in HubSpot, create a matching record in Podio with the same name and email."

You do not need to know the technical terminology. Describe it the way you would explain it to a person.

**Step 2: AVA builds and explains the flow**

AVA will show you the automation she has built — trigger, conditions, and actions — in plain language. She will ask if the logic is correct before activating it.

If you want to change something, tell her:

> "Add a condition — only trigger this if the deal is over $10,000."

**Step 3: Test before activating**

AVA will offer to test the automation before activating it. The test runs the flow with a sample record and shows you the output without making any real changes. Review the test result.

**Step 4: Activate**

Tell AVA to activate it. She will confirm and the automation goes live.

**Managing automations**

> "Show me all my active automations."
> "Pause the Salesforce-to-Podio sync flow."
> "Show me the last 10 runs of the Monday report automation."
> "Why did the HubSpot flow fail yesterday?"

AVA can answer all of these from your automation run history.

**Related:** How Automations Work · How to Test an Automation Before Activating It