# Workflow rules, triggers, and actions

How Content Central automation is built: triggers watch for events, schedules, or conditions; actions do the work; rules wire them together — with the full map of what each piece can watch and do.

Product: content-central · Versions: 7.x · Audience: catalog-administrator · Time: 12 minute read · Last verified: 2026-09-05

Canonical: https://help.ademero.com/content-central/workflow/workflow-rules-triggers-and-actions

**By the end of this page you'll know how Content Central automation fits together — what triggers can watch, what actions can do, and how rules combine them — so you can design an automation instead of guessing at one.**

Three pieces, always:

- A **trigger** watches for something — an event (a document was captured), a schedule (every night at 2 AM), or a condition (invoices older than 30 days exist).
- An **action** does something — start an approval, send an email, update a field, move a document, export data.
- A **rule** connects them: *when the trigger fires, run these actions, in this order.* Nothing happens until a rule is enabled.

## Two places to build, one system

| Scope | Where | Use it for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **One document type** | **Administration** > **Catalogs & Document Types** > pick catalog and type > **Workflow** tile | Most automations — invoice routing, notifications for one kind of document |
| **Global** | **Administration** > **Workflow** | System-wide automations, and the pieces that only exist globally: scheduled reports, catalog/document-type changes, packet triggers, export templates |

*[Screenshot: Triggers, Actions, and Rules each get a card with a live count. Anything configured here applies only to this document type.]*

The two scopes show slightly different menus on purpose: some triggers and actions are global-only, and in the document-type area the catalog/type pickers disappear because the scope is already decided.

## What triggers can watch

Every trigger has a **Type** and a sub-type, plus its own conditions. The families:

| Trigger family | Watches for |
| --- | --- |
| **Content Capture / Check-In / Check-Out / Deletion / Revision Upload / DocType Change** | A document event the moment it happens |
| **Content Age / Content Delay** | Documents reaching an age — or a span of time with *no* new documents (a great "the scanner went quiet" alarm) |
| **Content Query / Content Field Values** | Documents matching a query, or a field value being updated / reaching an age |
| **Coding-Queue Arrival / Commit / Deletion / Age / Query / Field Values** | The same ideas, inside the Coding Queue |
| **Queue Items** | Item counts sitting in the Coding, Approval, or Work queues |
| **Approval Processes** | Process events: assignment updates, movement between stages, items or age on a process or stage |
| **Work-Queue Age / Arrival / Departure** and **Signature-Queue Age** | Queue traffic and dwell time |
| **Reports** | The **Report Scheduler** — the schedule that fires report generation |
| **Packet Query / System Query** | (Global only) packet completeness; capture-service backlog and logged-in users |

Conditions live **on the trigger**: query types (all content, by full text, by field values, with return limits), field evaluations (equals, ranges, date offsets), capture-source filters (DirectScan, capture forms, specific file extensions…), and schedule settings for the timed types.

## What actions can do

The everyday set, by group — labels as they appear in the **Type:** dropdown:

- **Approvals:** Approval Process - Start Process / Change Stage / Change Priority
- **Communication:** Send E-mail · Send Internal Message
- **Documents:** Content - Check Out · Delete · Copy to Folder · Move to Folder · Export · Share · Update Field · Update Date Field with Today's Date · Merge Field Values · Calculate Field-Value Range · Perform Field Lookup · Update Field Lookup · Generate Capture-Job XML
- **Coding Queue:** Coding Queue - Update Field · Perform Field Lookup · Delete
- **Work Queue:** Work Queue - Assign · Remove
- **Output & integration:** Export Data · Run External Application · Generate Report *(global only)* · accounting exports for QuickBooks Online and Desktop, Sage 50 and Sage 50 Canada, Workday, and Epicor
- **Global-only utilities:** catalog/document-type changes, packet merges, field summaries and summations

## How a rule puts it together

On a rule's page (**Rules** > new rule):

1. **Enabled** — rules can be built disabled and switched on later; the Rules list has a per-row switch.
2. **Trigger** — click **Add Trigger** and pick one you've built. With **Use Multiple Triggers** checked, a **Combine Method** appears: **AND** ("ALL triggers must match for this rule to execute") or **OR** ("ANY trigger matching will cause this rule to execute").
3. **Action(s)** — add one or more, then arrange them with the move up/down arrows. **Actions run in the order shown** — put "update the field" before "export the data," not after.
4. **Apply** saves.

> **IMPORTANT:** Triggers and actions are reusable — several rules can share one trigger. That cuts both ways: editing a shared trigger changes every rule that uses it, and a trigger in use can't be deleted.

## Designing one: a worked pattern

"Email the AP manager when an invoice sits in the Coding Queue for more than 2 days":

1. **Trigger:** Coding-Queue Age → Age of Document-Type Content in the Coding Queue, on the invoice document type, threshold 2 days.
2. **Action:** Send E-mail, with a message template.
3. **Rule:** connect them, enable, Apply.

That same three-step shape builds almost everything — scheduled reports ([full walkthrough](/content-central/reports-and-exports/create-a-report)), auto-started approvals, aging alarms, and integration exports.

## When a rule doesn't fire

The diagnosis path is its own guide: [A scheduled workflow didn't run](/content-central/workflow/scheduled-workflow-didnt-run) — start there before rebuilding anything.

## What's next

- [Plan an automation](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/workflow/plan)
- [Set up an approval process](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/workflow/set-up-an-approval-process)
- [Create a report that runs on a schedule](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/reports-and-exports/create-a-report)
- [A scheduled workflow didn't run](https://help.ademero.com/content-central/workflow/scheduled-workflow-didnt-run)