In an earlier section, we learned about the Start step and how there are two types of Spells: Manual and Triggered. We’ll cover the differences between the types more in-depth in this section.

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Manual Spells

Manual Spells are workflows which you want to kick off, well, manually. For Manual Spells, you define the inputs yourself in the Start step, and there are a few ways in which a Manual Spell can be started.

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Defining inputs

Manual Spells need inputs, and since they aren’t predefined from another system, you need to define them yourself. Let’s say you want to research a competitor; you probably need to enter the competitor’s name.

To define your Spell’s inputs, click on the Start step to open the sidebar:

Select “Manual” to show the Input options below:

From here, you can click “Add Input”:

For each input, you’ll decide the type (remember, these are variables!), name, and other information. Once you’re done and click “Create”, it will show up in the sidebar:

Now, when we run the Spell, we’ll enter the Competitor Name to provide as the first variable. Let’s say this is enough for now - now how do we run it?

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Running manual Spells

Run in Respell

If you have a Spell that you want to run every once in a while, and you want to type in the inputs yourself, you will probably run the Spell in Respell. Here’s what the Run page looks like:

The inputs you defined for the Spell will show up here, and to run the Spell you simply enter the info like you’re filling out a form and click Run. That’s it! Your workflow should now be running, and you get to see what’s happening with Spell Run Activity. When it’s finished, your results will show below the inputs.

Run Bulk in Respell

Let’s say you have a spreadsheet full of competitor’s names, and you’ve got a lot of competitors. Instead of entering them one by one, Respell lets you upload the spreadsheet to run the Spell on each row.

To use Bulk Run, go to the Spell Page and click the “Bulk Run” tab:

Next, name your bulk run (to identify which batch the spell runs belong to later) and upload your spreadsheet. You’ll need to tell your Spell which columns go to which inputs:

Then, the data will be imported into a table. You’ll see blue columns for your inputs that you mapped. You’ll also see green columns; these are outputs (from any Display steps) that will be filled in once the bulk run is finished. Now you’re ready to run your Spell and watch it crunch through every row at the same time.

When you run the bulk run, you’ll see the progress on the page, and the runs will be grouped together when you view them in your Spell History.

This works for more than Excel spreadsheets; any tabular data can be used! Spreadsheets, SQL query results, developer logs, etc. You’ll just need to pass in a CSV of the data.

Run API

If you want to integrate your Spells into your systems or product, you can do that as well. Every Manual Spell provides an API endpoint to call it directly, passing in the inputs as JSON.

To run your Spell via the API, go to the Spell Run page and click the “API” tab:

We provide the code, including your API key, ready to copy & paste. See our API Reference to learn more.

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Triggered Spells

Triggered Spells are automation on autopilot: when something happens in a different system, it “triggers” the Spell to start. For example, when a new candidate applies to a job posting, your Evaluate Applicant Spell might run to score that candidate’s resume and advance them automatically to the next stage (or reject them).

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Setting up a trigger

You can set up a trigger when creating your Spell. In the editor, click on the Start step to bring up the sidebar:

Once you select the Trigger type, you’ll be prompted to enter some information:

  • The service to listen to events from
  • The event you want to trigger the Spell
  • Criteria or filters for events

Once you define the trigger and create it, your Spell is ready to accept events. The trigger won’t be active until you publish your Spell.

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Running triggered spells

Well, that’s the thing: you don’t have to run them! Once the trigger is set up and live, your Spell will run every time the triggering event happens.

You can always view when your Spell runs and what happened in the Spell page, or the main History page on the dashboard sidebar.

Step Options & VariablesSpell Library Overview