A Worker Bee watches for an event in your beehive and runs actions when it happens: for example, creating a follow-up task whenever a payment arrives. The New Worker Bee wizard takes you through four steps: Trigger, Filter, Actions and Review.

Before you start

  • You need workerbees:admin:automations. Without it, the New Worker Bee button isn’t shown and the wizard explains that you can’t create worker bees.
  • Some actions need a further permission, such as relationships:read:contacts to email a contact. Actions you can’t use aren’t offered. See Worker Bees permissions.
  • The bee runs on your behalf. You become its owner, and each time it runs it checks that you still have access to the beehive and the permissions its actions need.

A new Worker Bee is active as soon as you create it. It will act on the next matching event, including messages to supporters. Check the Review step carefully, and add a filter if you don’t want it to run for every event.

Step 1: Trigger

  1. Go to Worker Bees → All Worker Bees and choose New Worker Bee.
  2. Enter a Name, such as “Thank new regular givers”, and an optional Description.
  3. In Events, pick one or more trigger events. The trigger reference lists them all.
  4. Choose Next.

If you pick several events, ThirdSectorBee creates one Worker Bee per event, all sharing the same filters and actions. Each is named after your name with the event added in brackets, for example “Thank new regular givers (PaymentCreated)”.

Step 2: Filter

Filters are optional. Without one, the bee flies every time its event happens, and the step says so.

  1. Choose Single set for one set of conditions, or Swarm to set up branches (see Choose between actions with a swarm).
  2. Choose Add your first filter (or Add a filter), then pick a field. Fields are grouped under PRIMARY, the record the event is about, and LINKED, records connected to it.
  3. Choose a comparison and a value. With several conditions, all of them must match.
  4. Choose Next.

The strip at the top shows the trigger event. Using Change there replaces your selection with the single event you choose.

Which filters work today

Only is conditions on PRIMARY fields are matched. Read this before relying on a filter in a live automation:

  • is not, contains, is greater than, is less than, is set and is not set are saved but never match, so a bee using one of them won’t fly.
  • Conditions on LINKED fields are compared against the triggering record, not the linked one, so they don’t behave as their label suggests.
  • Matching is exact. “London” doesn’t match “london”, and a date matches only if it’s stored in exactly the form you entered.
  • The Form and Programme options are fixed examples rather than your own forms and programmes, so a condition on them won’t match.
  • If you add a condition on a field your own permissions hide from you, the bee won’t fly.

The trigger reference has the full detail.

Step 3: Actions

  1. Choose Add action, then choose from Action. Each option shows the module and the action, such as Tasks · Create task.
  2. Fill in the settings that appear. Required settings are marked, and the card shows an incomplete badge until they’re done.
  3. In supported text boxes, choose Insert data (or type {) to add a value from the event, such as the contact’s first name. See Insert data from the event.
  4. Add more actions if you need them. In Single set mode, every action runs each time the bee flies.
  5. Choose Next.

An action that’s greyed out with “Needs a trigger that includes a Contact” needs a different trigger. When you choose several events, only actions that every one of them can supply are offered. Changing an action clears the settings you entered for the previous one.

Each action is explained in Actions and their settings.

Step 4: Review

Check the Name, Trigger events, Initial filter and Actions (or Swarm branches). If several bees will be created, a note tells you how many. Use Back to change anything, then choose Create worker bee.

You’ll see Worker bee created and return to the list. The new bee shows Pending briefly while it’s saved, then Active.

If something goes wrong

  • Failed to create worker bee shows the reason. A message that you “do not hold” a permission means one of your actions needs access you don’t have.
  • No actions are available for your enabled modules and integrations. means none of the action providers are switched on for your beehive. Ask your administrator.
  • This screen doesn’t yet let you edit, pause or delete a Worker Bee. An administrator can do this through the Worker Bees API.

Next, read its flight history after the first event to check it did what you expected.