Open Automations from the left sidebar and you land on the Workflows tab — a visual builder where every automation is a graph of a trigger and the action nodes you connect after it. You build the graph on a canvas, verify it with a dry-run tester, and flip it on. Nothing you draw runs until you do that last step, so you can take your time getting it right. This guide builds one simple workflow from scratch: a trigger that fires on an incoming message or comment, and a reply that goes back automatically.
In this builder a workflow and an automation are the same thing: the tab is called Workflows, but the list button reads New Automation and each one carries a Draft or Live badge. There is no Save or Publish button anywhere — every change you make is saved as you go, and the one lifecycle switch is Set Live.
Open Automations, then Workflows
In the left sidebar, open Automations. The module opens on the Workflows tab, which is where the builder lives. The list shows all of your automations, grouped by folder.
Each row shows the automation's name with a Draft or Live status badge, plus columns for its Triggers, its Runs, and when it was last Modified. Two buttons sit in the header: AI Advisor and New Automation. On a brand-new account the list reads No automations yet with a Create your first automation prompt.
Create a new automation
Creating a workflow is instant — there is no dialog. Clicking New Automation inserts a Draft and opens it straight in the editor, so the automation exists the moment you create it. From there, name it and (optionally) file it away.
Create it
Click New Automation in the list header. A new Draft opens in the canvas editor.
Name it
Rename it from the automation bar above the canvas. The rename popup takes a Name and an optional description, so a teammate can tell at a glance what the workflow does.
File it away (optional)
Move it into a folder to keep the list tidy once you have a few automations — you can always move it later.
Set the run account and platform
On the automation bar there's an assisted-account picker. It binds the workflow to the account it runs on — and that account is its platform. Set it before you add a trigger, because the trigger list is scoped to that platform: a WhatsApp account offers WhatsApp triggers, a Facebook account offers Messenger triggers, and every account also offers the platform-agnostic contact events.
If you change the run account to a different platform, IcloneU warns you and removes any triggers that don't exist on the new platform — a Facebook comment trigger can't run on a WhatsApp flow. Pick the platform first so you don't lose trigger setup you've already done.
Add a trigger
A workflow starts from one or more triggers. The trigger node sits at the top-left of the canvas and holds all of them. Click Add Trigger to open the picker (its header reads Start automation when…), a categorized list of every event your platform can start on, plus the contact events shared by every channel.
Open the picker
Click Add Trigger on the trigger node.
Pick an event
Choose the event that should start the flow. For example, on Instagram pick Post or Reel comments (User comments on your Post or Reel), or on WhatsApp pick WhatsApp message (User sends a WhatsApp message). The trigger is added to the node and selected so you can configure it.
Set the matching
In the drawer, the Trigger matching group decides which messages actually fire it: type include and exclude keywords, turn on Match misspelled keywords for fuzzy matches, or describe a Message intent in plain language (start it with Person wants to…) to let the AI match by meaning. A comment trigger also lets you scope to Any post or a Specific post.
A new trigger is created Enabled. By default a trigger fires only the first time it matches for a given contact — so a welcome flow doesn't restart every time that person writes again. Turn on Fire every time for a catch-all rule that should re-fire on every match.
Add an action and connect it
Now give the trigger something to do. Add an action node with Add Node — Send Message is the usual first step — then connect the trigger to it. The connection matters as much as the node: dragging from the trigger's output port to the action's input port is what sets the workflow's entry point. Without a trigger-to-action connection there's nothing to run, and the Test button stays disabled.
Add the node
Click Add Node and choose Send Message. It drops onto the canvas.
Write the reply
Select the node to open its drawer. Click New item, choose Text, and type your message. You can insert variables (like the contact's first name) and emoji so the reply reads naturally.
Connect it to the trigger
Drag from the trigger node's output port down to the Send Message node's input port. The wire snaps into place and the trigger now has a first action — this is the entry point the engine enters at.
Add buttons (optional)
A text, image, or video message can carry up to three kinds of button: Open website, Call number, or Continue in workflow. The last one routes the tap to whatever you wire to that button's own output port, so a button can branch the flow.
You don't have to add a node first and connect it after. Drag a wire out of any output port and drop it on empty canvas — a compact node picker opens right there and the new node is created already connected.
The Text element (and image, video, audio, and file) works on every channel. Two element types — WhatsApp Template and List Message — appear in the New item menu only when the workflow runs on WhatsApp.
Keep building (optional)
A one-trigger, one-reply flow is already a working workflow. When you want to do more, keep adding nodes — every node has an input port on top and one or more output ports on the bottom, and you connect them the same way. A few of the building blocks you'll reach for most:
- Send Message — send one or more chat messages (text, image, video, audio, or file) to the contact.
- Condition — branch the flow into a Matches conditions path and a Doesn't match path based on the contact or the message.
- Delay and Schedule — wait a set duration, or until a date, before the flow continues.
- Randomizer — split contacts down weighted paths, for A/B tests, contests, or lotteries.
- Go To Automation — jump execution into another automation. This ends the current flow, so it's always a last step.
A Comment node is a sticky note for your team — it sits on the canvas to explain what's going on and is never executed as a step, so it's safe to drop anywhere for context.
Test it before you go live
Two tools on the canvas toolbar let you check the flow, and they're different. Preview is a design-time phone mockup that re-walks the graph with a synthetic contact — delays are shortened and external calls are faked, so it's a quick sanity check, not the real thing. Test runs the real engine as a dry run: Nothing is sent — every action is intercepted and traced. Use Test when you want to trust the result.
The Test button needs two things first: an entry point (a trigger connected to an action) and a run account. Until both are set, its tooltip tells you what's missing — for example Connect the trigger to an action to test this workflow.
Open the tester
Click Test on the toolbar. The Test workflow panel opens.
Pick a trigger and a sample
Choose which trigger to simulate and type some sample text (a message or comment). Pick a real contact as the sender so variables like the first name resolve to real values.
Run it and read the trace
Start the run and watch the steps stream live. Each step shows how it matched and carries an intercepted badge on any action that would have sent or changed something — nothing actually leaves the system.
Set it live
When the trace looks right, flip Set Live on the automation bar. That Draft → Live switch is what "publish" means here — there's no separate publish step. Set Live runs a quick pre-flight: if a connected node still needs configuration it warns you, but the warning is soft, so you can proceed with Set live anyway. To turn the workflow off again, use Revert to Draft.
A Draft never runs, no matter how complete it looks — it's your workshop. The flow only starts matching real messages and events once it's Live. Flip Set Live to arm it, and Revert to Draft whenever you need to pause or edit it safely.
Shortcut: the AI Advisor
If you'd rather describe what you want than draw it, use the AI Advisor. It opens with I'll help you create a new automation workflow. What would you like to build?, turns a plain-language description into a real workflow, and can also modify the one you have open. It's available from the list header, the editor's side panel, and the toolbar. Treat its output like any draft — read it, test it, and set it live yourself.
Frequently asked
There isn't one. Every edit — adding a node, moving it, renaming, wiring a connection, changing the trigger — is saved automatically as you make it. The only lifecycle control is the Set Live / Revert to Draft toggle on the automation bar, which is what turns the workflow on and off.
Three things have to be true. It must be Live (a Draft never fires); the trigger must be connected to a first action (that connection is the entry point); and it needs a run account bound on the bar. The Test button's tooltip flags the missing piece — if it reads Connect the trigger to an action to test this workflow, wire the trigger to a node first.
Preview is a design-time phone mockup that re-walks the flow with a synthetic contact, with delays shortened and external calls faked — a fast visual check that doesn't run the real engine. Test runs the actual engine as a dry run: it matches, walks, and traces every step, but intercepts every side effect so nothing is sent. Trust Test for true behavior.
The run account is the workflow's platform, and triggers are platform-specific. Switching to an account on a different platform drops the triggers that don't belong there — a Facebook comment trigger can't run on a WhatsApp flow. Set the platform before you build the triggers, or re-add them after the switch.
No. The AI Advisor can generate a whole workflow from a sentence describing what you want, and can edit the open one too. It's a shortcut, not a separate system — the workflow it makes is a normal Draft you review, test, and set live like any other.
Last updated July 9, 2026 · Automations
