Automations and repost lists

Automations do recurring work for you. They publish from a folder or a feed, draft posts with AI on a schedule, answer comments and Instagram messages, and bring evergreen posts back round. They live under Automations in the sidebar and are in beta.

There are two kinds:

• An automation, or flow, is a chain of steps you build from a starting point, such as "when a new RSS entry appears, write a post, wait for approval, then publish".
• A repost list is a rotation of evergreen posts that republishes one of them on the days and times you choose. It sits on its own tab inside Automations rather than as a separate sidebar item.

Create an automation

1. Open Automations. The All, Repost lists, Comments, Messages and Waiting for approval tabs filter the list, and each has its own starting points and its own "New" action.
2. Select New automation (or a tab's own action, such as New comment automation) and choose what it is for:

3. Pick one of the starting points (presets) for that goal. Everything after this is editable.
4. The flow opens in the builder. Flows run from left to right; select a step to open its settings. Right-click a step to configure, duplicate or delete it, and right-click a connection to delete it.
5. Choose the destination channels, and add an approval step (Require approval) wherever you want a person to check the result.
6. Select Preview run to see what the flow would produce. Nothing is posted or saved during a preview, although feed steps fetch their sources and AI steps can use AI credits.
7. Select Create (or Save changes on a flow you are editing). Saving checks the flow and shows a summary; confirm it to turn the automation on.

Approvals

An approval step can wait in one of two ways. Select the step and choose under What waiting looks like:

• Save a draft and finish is the default. The run completes, and the post waits as a draft for someone to publish it.
• Pause the run until approved stops the run at the step, and nothing is created yet. Paused runs are listed under Automations, on the Waiting for approval tab, and in your notifications. Open one to see what the flow produced, then select Approve to continue the remaining steps, or Decline to stop the run. A run nobody answers gives up after the number of hours you set in Give up after, 72 by default.

An approval step is optional for most flows. The starting points for replying to comments include one that pauses the run, so each reply waits for a person before it is sent. Flows that pull content in from Notion, Slack or Google Drive must include an approval step. Replying works on X, Facebook, Instagram and Threads.

Reply to comments

A comment automation can watch every post or only the posts you pick. Open its trigger and choose:

• Any post answers comments on every post its channels publish.
• Specific posts opens a picker of your published and scheduled posts. A scheduled post can be chosen before it goes live, so the automation is ready the moment it publishes.

On posts published from Publedia, each person is answered once per post, no matter which comment automation replies. On a post published elsewhere there is no such limit. A comment posted before the automation was turned on, or before its channel was connected, is left alone, so turning one on or connecting a channel never works through the backlog. A fixed reply can hold up to five wordings in total; each reply picks one, so the same post does not collect several copies of the same line.

To set one up for a single post, open the post and choose Automate replies in its menu (Edit reply automation once one already covers it). It opens the automation editor prefilled with that post, the post's channels that can read comments, and a fixed reply; review it and turn it on, and you land back on the post.

Sending a reply as a direct message, rather than under the comment, is offered only when one of the automation's channels supports it.

Reply to messages

Message automations answer Instagram direct messages. Start from Answer a keyword in messages, which sends your own wording whenever a message contains a word you choose, or from an AI reply that drafts an answer for you to approve before it sends.

Instagram only allows a reply within 24 hours of the person's last message, so a run that misses the window is skipped rather than sent late. A message sent before the automation was turned on, or before its channel was last connected, is left alone. Instagram accounts connected before this feature shipped need to be reconnected before they can send or receive automated replies; the Messages tab names which ones and offers Reconnect.

Conversations also show up next to comments in the inbox, where you can read a thread and reply by hand at any time. A manual reply marks the conversation handled and is held to the same 24-hour window; a new message from the other side reopens it.

Repost lists

A repost list is for posts that stay true: an introduction, a how-to, a frequently asked question, a standing offer. It republishes them in rotation so your channels keep a baseline of activity in weeks when nothing new is written.

Repost lists are included from the Ultra plan.

1. Open Automations, choose the Repost lists tab, and select New repost list.
2. Choose the channels it publishes to and the days and time it runs, for example Tuesday and Friday at 09:30.
3. Select Add post, write the post, and confirm with Add to rotation. Each post has its own text and media.
4. The list shows how many posts are in rotation and when the next run is. The schedule starts once the list has at least one post.

Each run publishes the next post in the rotation. You can edit or delete a post in the list at any time; deleting it removes it from the rotation, and posts it already published stay where they are. To stop a list for a while, choose Pause repost list in the list's menu (the three dots); to retire it, choose Archive repost list in the same menu.

Plan limits

Each plan includes a number of automations: 1 on Basic, 3 on Pro and 15 on Ultra. AI steps use the workspace's AI budget, which admins can see in Settings, AI.

Tips

• Run a new flow with an approval step for a week or two, and remove the step once you trust what it produces.
• Review a repost list every month or two and retire posts that have dated.
• Use both together. A repost list keeps a baseline going, and an automation that posts from your blog or newsletter feed adds the new material.

Related

• Create, adapt and schedule a post
• How often to post, and how to stay consistent