Node: Trigger

What it does

Defines the event that starts your automation.

Every automation has exactly one trigger node, and it's always the first node on the canvas. You can't remove it, and you can't add a second one.

You always use the trigger node — the question is which event you pick.

• New employee starting in Sales — a date trigger set to a number of days before the start date, so onboarding tasks go out with time to spare.
• Sick leave follow-up — a leave trigger that fires when an absence reaches a certain length, prompting the manager to book a conversation.
• Manager change handover — a change trigger that fires when an employee's manager field is updated.

Trigger node settings

Trigger category. Choose one of seven groups, then pick the specific event inside it:

• Onboarding and offboarding — hires, starts, resignations, employment endings
• Role and organisation — job title, department, office, or manager changes
• Leave and absence — leave type, consecutive days of leave, number of leaves
• Compensation and sensitive data — salary changes
• Personal and contact details — email, phone, and similar updates
• Custom fields — changes to custom fields you've defined
• Milestones and dates — birthdays, work anniversaries, specific date triggers

You navigate to the event by picking the category first, then the event.

Timing offset (date-based triggers only). How far before or after the date the automation should start — for example, 14 days before start date, or 30 days after employment ends. Without an offset, the automation runs on the date itself.

Threshold (some leave triggers). The length an absence must reach before the automation starts.

What happens when the trigger node runs

The trigger doesn't do anything to an employee's record — it only decides whether and when the rest of the automation runs.

• Change triggers are evaluated when the underlying record is edited. If someone edits a record retroactively, the trigger fires at the moment of the edit.
• Date triggers are evaluated on a schedule and fire when the date, plus or minus your offset, is reached.

Either way, a run is created for each matching employee, and the run then continues into the next node.

Limitations and common mistakes

• One trigger per automation. If your process genuinely starts from two different events, that's two automations.
• Activation isn't retroactive. Events that happened before you activated the automation won't produce runs. Activating an onboarding automation on Monday does nothing for the person who started last week.
• Changing the trigger on an active automation changes what it reacts to from that point onward. Runs already in progress are unaffected.