Automation and AI content is full of jargon that assumes you already know what it means. This is a running reference for the terms that come up most — short, honest, no-fluff definitions you can actually use in a conversation with a vendor or partner. We're building this out gradually alongside our guides, so some entries below are live and some are marked coming soon.
A workflow is the specific sequence of steps a task follows from start to finish — who does what, in what order, and what happens next depending on the outcome. "A new lead fills out a form, gets added to the CRM, gets a welcome email, and gets assigned to a salesperson" is a workflow. Automating a workflow just means software carries out those same steps instead of a person doing each one by hand.
An API (application programming interface) is the mechanism two pieces of software use to talk to each other directly — for example, letting your scheduling tool automatically create an entry in your accounting software the moment an appointment is booked, with no one manually copying information between the two. An "API integration" is simply that connection being set up and working. It's the plumbing behind most automation: without it, someone has to move information between systems by hand.
A trigger is the event that starts an automated process — a form submission, an incoming email, a new row in a spreadsheet, a specific time of day. Every automation needs one: something has to happen first to tell the system "run now." Understanding your triggers is often the fastest way to understand what an automation actually does.
Coming soon. We'll cover what it means for a person to review or approve an automated or agent-driven action before it takes effect, and when that step is worth keeping versus removing.
Coming soon. We'll cover what these tools are, how they differ from custom-built software, and where their limits are for a growing business.