Runbooks: play your process with one click

A runbook is a list of tasks in order that you can play with one click. Instead of starting five tasks by hand every Monday, you put them in a runbook once, press Play, and Multify works through them in order. Steps can run on Multify's servers or in your own browser.

What a runbook is

A runbook is a named list of tasks, in the order you want them run. When you play it, Multify picks up the first task, does the work, moves to the next, and so on, keeping the result of every step.

Two things set runbooks apart from a list of tasks:

• They're repeatable. Build the sequence once; run it as often as you like.
• They don't disturb your board. Playing a runbook runs the work but doesn't change each task's own status. A task sitting in To-do stays in To-do. The runbook keeps its own history of what happened, so your board stays tidy.

When to use a runbook

Use a single task when it's a one-off. Use a runbook when you have a process: steps you repeat, usually in the same order. If you've ever written yourself a checklist like "every Monday: pull the numbers, draft the update, post it," that's a runbook.

Create a runbook

Add and arrange tasks

Inside a runbook, click Add task and search for any of your existing tasks to drop it in as a step. A task can be a step in more than one runbook, so reusable building blocks (like "Post the weekly update") can appear wherever they're useful.

Steps run top to bottom. Drag the handle on the left of any step to reorder them until the sequence matches your process. To take a task out of a runbook, click the × on its row (this only removes it from the runbook; the task itself stays).

Require a step to complete

Each step has a must complete toggle. It controls what happens to the rest of the runbook if that step doesn't succeed:

• On: if this step fails, the runbook stops here. The steps after it don't run. Use this for a step everything else depends on (e.g. "pull the data" before "write the report").
• Off (the default): if this step fails, it's noted, but the runbook keeps going to the next step. Use this for a step that's nice-to-have but not a blocker.

A step fails when Multify hits an error it can't get past (something went wrong, timed out, or was stopped). Finishing the work and reporting back counts as success. Every step's result is recorded either way, so you can always see exactly what happened.

Set a success condition

A runbook can have an optional success condition: a plain-English description of what a good run looks like (for example, "a draft post was created and a summary was produced"). When the steps finish, Multify checks the results against that condition and marks the whole run succeeded or failed accordingly. Leave it blank and a run succeeds when every step succeeds.

Play a runbook

Press Play and the runbook starts. A live progress panel shows each step as it goes: a spinner on the step that's currently running, a green check when it finishes, a red mark if it fails, and a dash for any step that was skipped. You can expand View output on any completed step to read exactly what Multify produced.

To end a run early, click Stop. The current step wraps up and the rest are skipped. None of this changes your tasks' own statuses.

Steps that run in your browser

Some steps need you signed in somewhere: reordering supplies from a vendor portal, checking the price on a supplier's account page, filling the same intake form every week. Multify's servers can't sign in as you, but your browser is already signed in. A task can be set to run there, and Page Agent does that step in a tab behind yours while the rest of the runbook runs as usual.

Mark a task to run in your browser

Open the task and find When a runbook plays it, under Project. Choose In your browser (Page Agent) instead of On Multify's servers. Browser tasks show a globe icon on the board, browser steps are marked in the runbook, and a runbook with at least one of them gets a Browser chip.

Run it from the extension

Browser steps run when you press Run from the Multify extension, because that's the browser they work in. Open the panel menu (☰) and choose Runbooks. It lists your runbooks that have browser steps, each with Run and History, and a live view of each step while it runs.

• Each browser step opens its site in a tab behind the one you're on, so you can keep working.
• The first time a run needs a site, you get a card asking to use it. Allow for this run covers that site until the run ends. Sites you've set to always approve don't ask.
• Paying, booking, agreeing to terms and sending a message still stop and ask you, the same as in chat. Before a payment you see the order with its total.
• Later steps can use what earlier steps found, like a price or an order number.
• Stop in the run view, Stop on the page, or closing the tab you started from ends the run.

Scheduled and other runs

A schedule, a webhook, or Play on the web, desktop or mobile apps has no browser to work in. Those runs skip browser steps and note "Needs your browser: run this runbook from the Multify extension". The run carries on, unless that step is set to must complete. Play on those surfaces warns you first that browser steps will be skipped.

Make browser tasks from chat

In the extension, "create a task to…" makes a task instead of doing the work now. Multify picks where it runs: anything with a cart, checkout, sign-in or form goes to your browser, and anything with no website runs on Multify's servers. When it could go either way, a card asks In my browser or On Multify's servers. You can also say "in my browser."

Run history and results

Every play is saved under Run history on the runbook, with its status and time. Expand any past run to see how each step turned out and to read its output again. The runbook header also shows a success rate across runs, so you can spot a step that's been flaky.

Schedules and automatic triggers

A runbook can also run itself, on a schedule or whenever another system calls it. Open a runbook and click Triggers to set these up. (Available in the web app; desktop is on the way.)

Run on a schedule

In Triggers → Schedule, switch it on and choose how often (hourly, daily or weekly), the time of day, and your timezone (weekly also lets you pick which days). Multify then plays the runbook at those times, and handles daylight-saving changes. You'll see the next scheduled run right in the panel, and every scheduled run appears in Run history the same as a manual one.

Trigger from another system (webhook)

A webhook lets another app kick off a run by calling a web address. In Triggers → Webhook, switch it on and copy the URL. Then choose how it's protected:

• Require a secret (recommended): the caller must present the secret you're shown. You can regenerate it any time, which instantly invalidates the old one.
• No authentication: anyone with the URL can start a run. Only use this for low-risk runbooks.

To start a run, the other system sends a POST to the URL. When a secret is required, include it as an Authorization: Bearer <secret> header (an X-Runbook-Secret header or ?secret= query also work). You can include a JSON data object in the request body, and Multify passes it straight through to the completion postback below, so you can tie a run back to whatever triggered it.

Get notified when a run finishes (postback)

Set a Completion postback URL and Multify will POST a summary there every time the runbook finishes, however it was started. The summary includes the runbook name, the final status, the sequence of tasks that ran and how each turned out, the number of tasks, and start/finish timestamps. If the run was kicked off by a webhook that included a data object, that same data is echoed back so your system can match the result to the original request.

Example runbooks