Quick Start Guide

Learn how to start your automation journey in Kognitos.

Kognitos lets you write automations using plain English, turning natural-language instructions into executable workflows. This guide will walk you through the basics of writing an automation, building a simple workflow, and creating a reusable process.

Make sure you're all set up before jumping in!

📘 What Is an Automation?

An automation is a series of instructions that tells Kognitos what to do. It can refer to either a draft workflow in the Playground or a fully developed and reusable Process. Automations can:

• Process and transform data

• Interact with documents, files, and emails

• Handle logic, branching, loops, and conditions

• Call other processes

• Manage errors and exceptions

🛝 Begin in the Playground

Whether you're automating a one-time task or building a reusable process, you’ll start by writing instructions in the Playground — a workspace for writing and testing automations.

To create a new Playground:

1. Navigate to Playground in the left sidebar menu.

2. Click on + New Playground.

The input area of the Playground is where you will write your automation and define the workflow.

✍️ Writing Automations

Automations in Kognitos are made up of procedures — automation tasks defined in plain English.

Each procedure follows a defined grammatical syntax that Kognitos understands, such as open a file, extract data or send an email. By combining multiple procedures, you can build a complete automation workflow.

Example

The following example shows an automation that extracts data from a receipt and emails a summary to the user:

upload a document where
	the file is Uber-Receipt.pdf

extract data from the document where
	the first field is "date"
	the first field's format is "text"

	the second field is "location"
	the second field's format is "text"

	the third field is "total"
	the third field's format is "text"

create a table where
	the column names are "Date", "Start Location", "Total Cost"
	the row count is 1

insert a row in the table where
	the Date is the data's date
	the Start Location is the data's location
	the Total Cost is the data's total

send an email where
	the recipient is [e-mail]
	the subject "Rideshare Receipt Summary"
	the message is the table

See Writing Automations for guidance on authoring automations and visit Automation Areas to discover available procedures.

⏭️ Processes

A process is an automation workflow built using one or more procedures. When you are finished writing and refining your automation in the Playground, you can convert it to a draft process.

Create A New Draft Process

1. Finish building your automation in the Playground, then click on Create Process.

2. Name your process using one of the following patterns:

   • Starts with "to"

   • Ends with "is", "if", or "are"

Examples:

• to do something

• a book is good if

• the cool penguins are

• the valid string is

Additional Rules:

• Only use alphanumeric characters, including letters A-Z, a-z and numbers 0-9.

• Do not use special characters, including but not limited to: ! - @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _

• This makes it easy for Kognitos to read the process name like an English phrase!

1. Click on Create a Draft Process.

A video explaining how to create a timestamp generation process in Kognitos.

Troubleshooting Process Creation

1. Make sure the process name is valid. Your process should either start with 'to' or end with 'if', 'is' or 'are'. The process name should also only contain alphanumeric characters. If these naming conventions are not followed, you may encounter the following error: The name you entered is not a valid procedure name.

2. Test your automation in the Playground first. If there are any errors, Kognitos may prevent you from creating the process. Run and test the script to identify issues before saving it as a new process.

Publish a Process

When you are ready to finalize your process, you can publish it. Once published, the process becomes locked for edits, making it stable for production but unchangeable without creating a new draft.

This video explains the distinction between draft and published processes in Kognitos, highlighting how each version is suited to specific stages of process development.