Automator 4.5: SureCart, Advanced Ads, JetFormBuilder & Download Manager

We’re excited to introduce Uncanny Automator 4.5, the latest major release of the #1 no-code automation plugin for WordPress. This release adds four new integrations, including the new SureCart ecommerce platform, Advanced Ads, JetFormBuilder and WordPress Download Manager. There are also several huge new features in the plugin, including new database management tools and an overhaul of the recipe logs for better usability and performance.

WordPress Download Manager

Let’s start with some of the integrations, triggers and actions in the Automator 4.5 release. The first one is something we’ve seen from customers on and off related to this question: “How can I run recipes when someone downloads a file?” We settled on WordPress Download Manager to address this use case and the 4.5 release adds 1 trigger for “Everyone” recipes:

• A specific file is downloaded

With this new addition, you can have file downloads tag users in a CRM, add them to a mailing list, autocomplete a lesson or topic so users can proceed in a course, log download details in Google Sheets, send a purchase offer by email when users download a sample, etc.

SureCart

SureCart, a new and exciting SaaS ecommerce platform for WordPress, has leapt onto the scene to glowing reviews and significant growth. A free version is currently available and a Pro version is coming soon, and Uncanny Automator will be able to support both in recipes.

Uncanny Automator 4.5 adds 1 new trigger for SureCart:

• A user purchases a product

(“Guest” triggers, as you might expect, are coming soon in Automator Pro.) With these new triggers, you can set up SureCart automations that link product purchases to actions like adding users to mailing lists, adding and removing CRM tags, queuing follow-up emails, tracking affiliate commissions, unlocking membership levels, granting group or course access, etc. Pairing SureCart plus Uncanny Automator equals one of the most powerful ecommerce solutions available—and it’s all in our free version, with no limits on recipes or recipe runs.

JetFormBuilder

Okay Crocoblock users, we heard your requests and we’re excited to announce new support for JetFormBuilder. Automator 4.5 includes these 2 triggers:

• A user submits a form (logged-in)
• A form is submitted (everyone)

And, as you might expect from any of our form integrations (even in a first release!) we have lots of token support, including parsing a variety of field types, form ID, name, title, etc. If it’s in your form, we can probably grab it and use it in actions! Popular use cases will probably including sending form data to Airtable and Google Sheets, registering users, setting CRM tags, and setting up notifications and email campaigns.

(Were you hoping for some JetEngine news to go along with this announcement? If so, hang in there for the Pro release!)

Advanced Ads

Ever wish you could control ads or trigger recipes when ads are changed? Automator 4.5 adds a new integration for Advanced Ads, a popular ad management plugin with over a decade of history. Here’s what’s new for Automator:

• Trigger: An ad is set to a specific status
• Action: Set an ad to a specific status

The new additions allow automations like notifying someone in Slack when a scheduled ad goes live, triggering a mail campaign when an ad is published, publishing an ad when payment via a form is received, etc.

New recipe logs

We thought it was about time that the Recipe Logs caught up with the rest of Automator in terms of styling and experience. In the Automator 4.5 release, you’ll notice big changes to the recipe log. Here’s what it looks like (with the mouse cursor hovering in the first row):

There’s a lot to highlight here, so we’ll add some comments about key things to note in the screenshot:

• There is full gravatar support now to make the user associated with the recipe run more easily identifiable. Images are cached locally for better performance and this won’t slow down log load times.
• The previous Details button has been replaced with the “i” icon. Functionality remains the same. Hover over a row to show the trash icon that allows deleting a log entry.
• Recipe runs that completed with errors are shown in red. Check the “i” icon to see full details about the error.
• If the “User run #” column shows an icon of a person with a slash through it, it means it’s a userless recipe.
• All filter and search functionality remains the same.
• All columns are fully sortable.
• Recipe titles in the first column are hyperlinked to the associated recipe edit page, and users in the User column are hyperlinked to the user edit page.

It’s a lot of change, but we think it makes the log tables easier to work with and more useful. Behind the scenes, we were able to reduce the number of calls to load log entries to make the pages more performant too.

New database tools

We’re not finished with new features yet! While not especially glamorous, Automator 4.5 adds new cleanup and migration tools.

Ever wanted to start over with Automator or purge all Automator tables if you decide to stop using it? No problem, here’s what the new page under Automator > Status > Tools looks like in /wp-admin/:

If table issues are detected, we’ll show a button to repair them. If the tables are fine, there’s a button to purge all tables. And those trash can icons on the right? You can use those to drop Automator “views” from the database. We use database “views” to make data lookups more efficient, but some migration tools don’t like them. While we have seen probably fewer than 20 sites affected, now there’s a convenient new way to drop views if they aren’t properly supported by your environment or migration plugin. (Dropping views does not cause data loss in any way, they simply present data from other tables in a way that’s more efficient for Automator when we run recipes.)

And the rest

The “Tools” menu was changed to “Status” and a lot of user interface elements were improved. If it’s been some time since you checked out those status, tool and debug pages, maybe it’s time for another look!

Condition sentences are now sorted alphabetically. As we keep adding conditions (wait until you see Pro!) making sure the entries are well organized is becoming increasingly important.

Recipes now list available integrations for triggers and actions before integrations that aren’t yet set up. So instead of showing all integrations alphabetically, available ones are now shown first in each list.

Uncanny Groups gains a new trigger for “a form is submitted with a key from a specific group” for Gravity Forms only. Ever wanted to fire unique onboarding emails or automations based on a user redeeming an enrollment key for a specific group? Now you can!

Tokens related to dates have been moved to a new “Date” category in the token list. This aligns with some bigger changes for date and time in the upcoming Pro release.

Finally, there’s an interesting new trigger in the WordPress Core integration: A user logs out of a site.

Those are the highlights for this big update to our free Uncanny Automator plugin. Make sure to check out the full changelog for a complete list of what’s new in Automator 4.5, and let us know what new features you like best in the comments below!