Run an automation on a schedule

An automation on a schedule runs by the clock (a recurring task), every day, week, month or year at a time you choose. The users who build the base make automations. The example shop reminds customers of unpaid orders every morning:

1. In Automations, open Overdue orders: remind the customer. Its list says "Every day at 09:00, for every item in Overdue", when it last ran and when it runs next.
2. Under Runs, On a schedule is picked. Every offers minutes, hours, a day, a weekday (Monday to Friday), a week, a month, a year (its month and day) or once, and At the time, in the base's time zone.
3. Under It runs, Over the items of a view runs the actions once for every item the saved view shows at that moment, here the view Overdue. Once per firing, with no item runs them once, such as the example shop's Monthly price review, which creates a quote request on the 1st and starts Quotes on it.

Limits and details

• If the month does not have the day, the schedule runs on the last day of the month: February 29 runs on February 28 in a year that does not have it.
• A schedule runs at most once per period.
• If the base was down or paused when a schedule was due, the schedule runs once when the base is back, not once for every time it missed.

A digest is one email that lists all the items of a view, sent by an automation on a schedule over that view. The example shop's Weekly digest of overdue orders mails [email protected] every Monday at 07:00 the orders of the view Overdue. A digest's To may also name a role, and then each of its users gets the digest.

1. Open the automation: On a schedule, every week on Monday at 07:00, Over the items of a view, Overdue.
2. Its email action has Send one mail listing all the items (a digest) switched on. Its To, Subject and Body take only the firing's date and time (Insert a placeholder): with no one item, the item's fields, the links and Reply to this item are not offered.

Each time the digest runs, one plain-text mail goes, in this order:

• the body;
• a line for each item in the view's order with the view's columns and, under it, the link to the item's page in the base, at most 100 and then "… and 23 more";
• how many there are and the sum of each column that adds up (Add up a list’s numbers in the Total row), such as "4 orders · Total: $7,180.08";
• last, "Open the list:" with the link to the view in the base.

When the view has no item, no mail goes. The automation's other actions still run for each item. Ask the assistant "Every Monday, mail me the overdue orders" and it makes one digest, not a mail per order.

A digest can also go to each person that its items name, with only that person's items. In the digest's To, write one address of the item, such as {{client.email}} for the email of the order's client, or {{email}} for an email field of the item itself.

• Each time it runs, Base Captain groups the view's items by that address and sends one mail to each address, with only that person's items, their columns and their totals. A customer with three visits tomorrow gets one mail that lists the three, not three mails.
• These mails have no links into the base, because the person who gets one may not be a user of the base.
• An item with no address is left out.
• The Subject and Body can also show the fields of the person's first item, such as {{client.name}}, for what all of that person's items share.
• The To of such a digest holds only that one address. To send the whole list as well, to a role or to a fixed address, add a second digest. A digest to a role or to a fixed address still lists all the items, with their links.

For example, a café mails each person their shifts for tomorrow, every day at 18:00, over the view Tomorrow of its shifts. The To is {{person.email}}, the Subject "Your shifts tomorrow, {{date}}" and the Body "Hello {{person.name}}, Your shifts tomorrow:". Ana, who works two shifts, gets one mail:

Hello Ana Pop,

Your shifts tomorrow:

Barista  ·  12/10/2026 07:00  ·  12/10/2026 11:00
Barista  ·  12/10/2026 15:00  ·  12/10/2026 19:00

2 shifts

Ask the assistant "Every evening, mail each customer their visits for tomorrow in one mail" and it makes one digest to the customer's address.

Run now runs an automation on a schedule once, now, as its schedule would, so you can try it without waiting.

1. Click Run now under the schedule in the list.
2. Confirm in the box "Run Overdue orders: remind the customer now?".

The schedule mails the customer of each order in Overdue, and what it changes shows in the items' history as the schedule's. The list then says when it last ran and over how many items, such as "Last run 2026-10-01 10:15, 4 items", and its next run stays where it was, so tomorrow's at 09:00 still happens.

• A switched-off automation has no Run now.
• While agents and workflows are paused, Run now is refused and a message says why.

Send to me only, beside Run now, sends a schedule's mails to you alone, so you see them before anyone gets them. It runs only the schedule's email actions, on the items Run now would read, and sends each mail to you and to nobody else, at most 5: "Sent 2 preview mails to [email protected]", or "The schedule has no mail to send".

• Each subject starts with "Preview:", and each mail starts with a line that says who gets it when the schedule runs.
• The links of a preview mail do not work.
• A preview changes nothing: no field, item, history or webhook, and the schedule's last run and next run stay as they were.
• Ask the assistant "Send me tomorrow's shifts mail first, I want to see it" and it does the same.