Let’s face it — routine tasks are tedious. They drain your energy, steal your focus, and prevent you from working on what truly matters. This is where ClickUp automations come to the rescue.
ClickUp automations are specifically designed to take over defined, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks that don’t require human creativity, reason, or judgment. By delegating these mundane processes to digital solutions, you can achieve greater accuracy, productivity, and efficiency in your workflow.
Whether you’re managing projects, coordinating with team members, or tracking deadlines, learning how to utilize ClickUp automations can significantly enhance your productivity. Interestingly, nearly 80% of business leaders believe that automation can be applied to any decision-making process.
In this step-by-step guide, we’ll walk you through setting up ClickUp automations features at different levels — space, folder, or list. By the end, you’ll have the knowledge to automate repetitive tasks and save valuable time that you can redirect toward meaningful work.
What Are ClickUp Automations?
ClickUp Automations are powerful tools that move processes forward in step-by-step workflows, optimizing repetitive tasks so they can be executed without manual intervention. At their core, these automations follow a simple formula: “When this happens, then do this action”.
How automations work in ClickUp
ClickUp Automations operate through three essential components:
- Triggers: Events that start an automation, such as when a task status changes
- Conditions: Optional criteria (available on Business Plan and above) that must be true for the automation to launch, like “Assignee is any of the Content team”
- Actions: The events that the automation initiates after being triggered, such as adding a comment or sending an email
These components work together hierarchically. For instance, an automation created in a List will only affect tasks within that List, while an automation in a Folder will affect all tasks in all Lists within that Folder.
Furthermore, ClickUp offers AI capabilities through ClickUp Brain, which makes it incredibly easy to automate workflows. You can describe what you want to automate in plain English, and watch as the built-in AI configures a workflow automation on any Space, Folder, or List.
When to use automations vs manual tasks
Although powerful, not every task in your workflow can or should be automated. Numerous decisions across tasks that repeat the same way are perfect candidates for automation. However, highly manual processes might not be ideal for complete automation—though you might still automate decision approval parts of those processes.
Automations are particularly valuable when:
- You don’t have time to perform repetitive tasks
- Precision is crucial (automated software may be more accurate)
- You need to save significant time on routine work
Often, automated tasks kickstart phases in a process—for example, when a prospect becomes a client or when someone approves a final document. Even simple automated tasks add up over time, freeing your time to handle more complex tasks that require human judgment.
By implementing ClickUp Automations, you’re building momentum for your team, increasing efficiency, and ensuring deliverables reach the right people at the right time.
Core Components of ClickUp Automations
Understanding the building blocks of ClickUp automations is essential for creating effective workflows. Every automation in ClickUp follows a simple recipe: “When this happens, then do this action”. Let’s break down the three fundamental components that power these time-saving tools.
Triggers: What starts an automation
Triggers are the catalysts that initiate an automation sequence. Essentially, they’re specific events that signal ClickUp to put your automation into motion. These events range from status changes to due dates arriving, acting as the “When this happens” part of your automation formula.
Some common trigger examples include:
- Status changes on tasks
- Due dates arriving or changing
- Assignees being added or removed
- Custom field changes
- Tasks or subtasks are being created
- Checklists being resolved
- Tags being added or removed
Each trigger is designed to respond to a specific workflow event, allowing you to automate processes at precisely the right moment.
Actions: What happens after the trigger
Actions represent the outcomes resulting from triggers. They’re the “then do this action” portion of your automation recipe. Once a trigger activates, ClickUp performs these actions in the exact order you’ve arranged them—from top to bottom.
Actions you can automate include:
- Changing assignees, due dates, or priorities
- Adding comments or sending messages
- Applying templates
- Creating subtasks
- Moving tasks to different lists
- Setting custom field values
- Archiving or deleting tasks
Additionally, actions execute in sequence, meaning you can chain multiple actions together to create sophisticated workflows.
Conditions: Adding logic to your automation
Conditions add an extra layer of precision to your automations. Available on Business Plan and above, conditions act as filters that determine whether an automation should proceed after being triggered. They must be true before the trigger activates for an action to occur.
Consider conditions as the “if” statement in your automation logic. For instance, you might set a trigger to reassign a task when it’s overdue, but add a condition that this only happens for specific team members or priorities.
Common conditions include filtering by:
- Assignee (specific users, all, or none)
- Task status or priority
- Due dates or time estimates
- Custom field values
- Tags or watchers
- Time in status (e.g., tasks in “Review” for more than 5 hours)
By combining triggers, actions, and conditions, you can create remarkably sophisticated automations that handle routine work while you focus on more meaningful tasks.
How to Set Up ClickUp Automations
Setting up automations in ClickUp requires following a specific sequence of steps. First, you need to enable the Automation feature from ClickApps before you can start creating automated workflows.
Step 1: Choose the right Space, Folder, or List
ClickUp’s hierarchy determines the scope of your automations. When creating an automation at the Space level, it affects all tasks within that Space. Likewise, a Folder-level automation impacts all Lists within that Folder, whereas a List-level automation only applies to tasks in that specific List. Navigate to your desired location, and subsequently click the lightning bolt icon in the upper-right corner.
Step 2: Select a trigger from the automation library
After clicking “Add Automation,” you’ll need to select a trigger – the event that initiates your automation. Triggers include status changes, due date arrivals, or when tasks are created. Choose the most appropriate trigger based on your workflow needs, keeping in mind that triggers start the automation and result in an action.
Step 3: Add actions and optional conditions
Next, select what happens after the trigger. Actions execute in order from top to bottom, allowing you to create complex sequences. For Business Plan users, add conditions by clicking the plus icon below the trigger. Conditions act as filters that must be true for the automation to launch, offering greater precision.
Step 4: Test and activate your automation
Finalize by clicking Create. Under the “Manage” tab, you can track, edit, enable, or disable automations. Remember to test your automation by creating a test task and verifying that each step works as expected. You can always rename, add descriptions, duplicate, or delete automations as needed.
Popular Use Cases and Templates
Now that you understand how to set up automations, let’s explore practical applications that streamline your workflow. ClickUp offers numerous pre-built and customizable automation templates for various business processes.
Assigning tasks based on status changes
With dynamic assignees, you can automatically route tasks to the right team members when statuses change. For instance, when a task’s status changes to “Completed,” an automation can assign it to a team leader for review. This feature automatically notifies teams when responsibilities change.
Sending alerts for overdue tasks
Create quality control automations that generate alerts when tasks are marked complete but missing required information. Moreover, you can configure ClickUp to send automated email reminders about approaching deadlines, keeping everyone accountable.
Using templates for recurring workflows
ClickUp’s template system creates reusable blueprints for repetitive tasks. Indeed, you can schedule recurring tasks that repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly, customizing recurrence patterns to match your workflow needs.
Automating approvals and handoffs
ClickUp streamlines approvals and optimizes handoffs, allowing teams to move faster without roadblocks. Notably, you can use forms to capture requests, auto-route approvals, and trigger workflows instantly.
ClickUp automations for marketing and sales
Marketing teams benefit from automations that move requests to appropriate team folders based on task type. Consequently, sales teams can automate lead assignment between representatives based on pipeline or monthly goals. These features eliminate repetitive work across content scheduling, approvals, and project handoffs.
Conclusion
ClickUp automations stand as powerful allies in the battle against time-consuming, repetitive tasks. Throughout this guide, we’ve explored how these automations follow a straightforward “When this happens, then do this action” formula to transform your workflow. The combination of triggers, actions, and conditions creates a robust system that handles routine work while you focus on tasks requiring human creativity and judgment.
Most importantly, implementing ClickUp automations doesn’t require technical expertise. The step-by-step process we’ve outlined makes it accessible even for beginners. You can start small by automating simple tasks like status updates or assignee changes, then gradually build more complex workflows as your confidence grows.
Remember that automating just five hours of repetitive work weekly saves approximately 1.5 months annually! This time can be redirected toward strategic thinking, creative problem-solving, or other high-value activities that move your projects forward.
The practical use cases we’ve examined—from dynamic task assignments to automated approvals—demonstrate how versatile ClickUp automations can be across different departments and workflows. These automation capabilities adapt to your specific needs rather than forcing you to change your processes.
Take the first step today by identifying one repetitive task in your workflow that consumes significant time. Set up an automation for this task using the guidelines provided, then watch as your productivity improves. After all, the journey toward workflow mastery begins with automating one task at a time.