Creating an Automation with the Guided Wizard

The guided wizard is a chat: you describe what you want to automate in plain language, and an AI interviewer asks clarifying questions until it has everything needed to build the automation for you. It is the best path when you know the outcome you want but not the prompt, tools, or configuration to get there.

Open it from the Guided conversation card on the Automations tab, or go directly to /automations/wizard.

The page is a two-pane workspace: the conversation on the left, and a live requirements panel on the right that tracks everything the automation still needs (it stacks below the chat on narrow screens). You never have to guess how close you are — the panel shows it, updates as you talk, and you can jump into the advanced builder at any point without losing progress. See The live requirements panel below.

Step by step

1. Accept the consent notice. Before any chat, a "Consent required" card explains that managed automation agents execute on your behalf against your connected MSP tools, and that some actions may be destructive (close tickets, disable users, delete records). Click I understand — continue to proceed. Nothing else on the page is usable until you do.

   The wizard's "Consent required" card with the "I understand — continue" button.

2. Describe what you want to automate in the message box and click Send. Be as specific as you can — which product, which records, what outcome.

3. Answer the wizard's questions. The wizard replies conversationally and often presents a structured question card. Question cards come in three forms:

   • Option buttons — click one to answer.
   • Freeform — type your answer.
   • Tool picker — a full tool selector embedded in the chat, grouped by connector and category, when the wizard needs you to choose exactly which tools the automation may use. Tick your tools and click the Apply N tools button (it counts your selection live).

   You are never boxed in by the options: every question card also lets you type a freeform "something else" answer instead.

4. Watch the draft build up. A collapsible Draft configuration panel above the chat shows everything the wizard has settled so far — name, model, trigger, tools, guardrails, and any advanced fields (tool policy, tool chains, native tools, knowledge, MCP exposure). While the interview is incomplete, the panel's Create automation button is disabled and shows exactly what is still missing ("Still need: …").

5. Create the automation when the interview is complete. The wizard's server decides when the interview is complete — the Create button only unlocks once every required piece of the configuration has been gathered and validated. When it is ready, a green "Ready to create" message appears with a Create automation button. Two other states can appear instead:

   • "Almost ready — Still need: …" — the interview is not complete; the list tells you exactly which fields to settle in your next answers.
   • "Wizard blocked" (red) — the wizard determined it cannot build what you asked for with your tenant's available tools (for example, a capability your connectors don't provide). Adjust the request or your connectors.

6. Or force it: "Enough, build it." Once the wizard has anything workable, an Enough, build it button appears in the page header. Clicking it tells the wizard to finalize with what it has; if the result passes the server's completeness check, the automation is created immediately. Use this when you're confident the wizard already has what matters and you don't want to answer more questions.

7. You land on the new automation's detail page. The automation is created in dry-run mode (read-only tool access), with consent already recorded from step 1. Test it, then promote it to production when you're satisfied — see the promotion flow in Creating an Automation with the Advanced Builder.

The live requirements panel

The panel on the right is the wizard's scoreboard. It tracks the same dimensions the advanced builder walks through, so the wizard is never a lighter-weight path that produces an under-configured automation — its "ready to create" gate is exactly the builder's "ready to deploy" gate.

• Before your first message, it shows a "What we'll set up together" checklist so you know up front what the interview covers: identity and persona, trigger, tools and capabilities, knowledge, guardrails and notifications, and the prerequisites that must be in place before the automation can run.
• Once the conversation starts, it flips to a live Requirements checklist, computed on the server after every turn and grouped by those same dimensions. A badge at the top summarizes where you stand: "N to resolve", "N before it runs", or "All set".

Each row carries an icon that tells you what kind of item it is:

Fixable rows link straight to the fix: a missing connector credential links to Connectors, a low credit balance links to Add credits, and a piece that's easier to set in the step-by-step builder offers a Fix in builder hand-off.

"Created, but it won't run yet"

Some prerequisites are warnings, not blockers — they never stop you creating the automation, but the automation stays idle until you resolve them:

• Agentic orchestration must be enabled for your tenant (an admin action).
• Your credit balance must cover the per-run reservation (unless you're on BYOK).
• Every connector a chosen tool needs must have a valid saved credential.

When you reach the "ready to create" state, a summary repeats any of these that still apply, so you never leave believing a created-but-idle automation is fully live. Resolve them from the linked pages, and the automation runs on its next trigger.

Jump into the advanced builder — nothing is lost

At any point you can move what the wizard has assembled into the advanced builder: click Open in advanced builder at the bottom of the requirements panel, or a Fix in builder link on a specific row. Everything gathered so far — name, description, model, system prompt, trigger, tools, native abilities, knowledge, and guardrails — carries across, and the builder opens on the relevant step (Basics, Knowledge, Capabilities, or Review). Your wizard conversation is left intact, so you can navigate back and keep talking if you change your mind.

Costs: wizard messages are metered

Each message you send to the wizard is itself a small AI operation and is metered in credits. The footer under the chat shows, live:

• Credits spent this session
• Remaining balance
• Cache hits (prompt tokens served from cache, which reduce cost)

Tenants using BYOK (your own Anthropic key) pay zero credits for wizard turns. If your balance runs out mid-conversation, the wizard stops with a credits-exhausted error (SJ-WIZ-CREDITS-EXHAUSTED) — top up on the Credits tab and continue.

Your session survives a refresh

The conversation, draft, and progress are saved in your browser, scoped to you and your tenant. If you refresh or come back later on the same browser, the wizard picks up where you left off. On a shared workstation, another user signing in sees their own wizard state, never yours.

• Start over (below the chat) wipes the session and begins a fresh interview.
• Retry appears if a message fails due to a network or server error — it re-sends the exact failed request without losing your place.

If creation fails

Create errors are shown with a support code so you can quote them to support: