A start tells Rills when to create a new workflow run. Every workflow needs at least one, and you can use more than one. For example, add a manual start for testing alongside a schedule or webhook for live work.
Starts are free. You only pay for the action steps a run executes.
#Choose what starts the work
| Start when… | Choose… |
|---|---|
| You want to test or run the workflow yourself | Manual |
| It should run at a regular time | Schedule |
| Something happens in a connected app | Integration Event |
| Another tool sends information to Rills | Webhook |
| A new table row or form response arrives | Data Change |
| An email reaches the workflow’s assigned address | Inbound Email |
#Manual
Add a Manual start and select Run in the builder whenever you want to start the workflow yourself. Use it while building, for occasional jobs, or whenever a person should decide when the work begins.
Manual runs from the builder use your current draft. See test runs.
#Schedule
Use a Schedule when the work should run regularly: every hour, every day, or at a particular time on selected days. Choose the workflow’s timezone so it runs at the expected local time, including when daylight saving time changes.
You can enable or disable a schedule without stopping the workflow’s other starts. If scheduled runs fail five times in a row, Rills disables that schedule and notifies the workspace. Re-enable it after fixing the problem.
#Integration Event
Use an Integration Event when a connected app should start the workflow, such as a new Gmail message, a successful Stripe charge, or an opened GitHub pull request. Choose the integration, event, and connection to use.
The event information is available to later steps. In a field, select Insert data from an earlier step, then choose the event and the detail you need. See Integrations to connect an app.
#Webhook
Use a Webhook when another tool needs to send information to a unique Rills URL. It is useful for a service that is not in the integration catalog or for a one-off connection.
Set the request method and authentication, then give the generated URL to the system that will call it. See Webhook triggers for setup, authentication, data, and status codes.
#Data Change
Use a Data Change start when a row is added to a workspace table or when someone submits a form connected to that table. The new row becomes trigger data for the workflow.
Choose the table and whether to start on a new row or a form submission. You can optionally limit form submissions to one form. Only published workflows start from data changes. See Data Change for the full setup.
#Inbound Email
Use Inbound Email to turn incoming mail into work: classify a request, draft a reply, save an attachment, or send the message to an approver.
#The assigned address
When you publish a workflow with an Inbound Email start, Rills gives that start a unique address:
yourworkspace-a1b2c3@in.rills.io
The address stays the same when you republish and appears in the start’s configuration after publishing. Share it with the people or systems that should send mail to the workflow, or use it as the reply-to address on outbound email.
#What the workflow receives
Each message provides these values to later steps:
| Field | Contents |
|---|---|
from | The sender’s address |
subject | The subject line |
textBody | The plain-text body |
htmlBody | The HTML body |
messageId | The message’s unique ID |
authenticated | Whether Rills verified the sender’s domain aligns with the From address |
In a later field, select Insert data from an earlier step, choose the Inbound Email trigger, then select Sender, Subject, or Plain-text body.
#Treat unverified senders carefully
Email From addresses can be forged. Rills sets authenticated to true only when the domain that authenticated the message matches the domain in its From address.
- Authenticated mail is safe to act on and reply to. A Send Email step can reply to that sender from the default
@rills.aiaddress, even without a verified sender domain. - Unauthenticated mail still starts the workflow so legitimate messages are not silently lost. Before an action that matters, add a Condition using the trigger’s Authenticated value and route unverified mail to Human Review or stop the workflow.
Rills uses messageId to avoid starting the workflow twice when a delivery is retried.
#See also
- Workflows: how a workflow fits together
- Webhook triggers: receive requests from another tool
- Send Email: send and reply to email
- Runs & Versions: test, publish, and inspect workflow runs