Create automation creator landing page guide

[Olivia-Chiong]

Overview

We need to create a landing page for the automation creation process so users can understand the process

Action Items

An overview of the automation creation process (with screenshots of the futureautomations board) and links to each of the 3 guides

Product

• Write a draft outline
• Paste mark-down for the guide instructions in a comment on this issue.
• Review with team
• Create a mark-down file for this guide and add it to a folder called _guides
  • Call the file a name with dashes that is as short as possible
    • name:
  • Add a header to the file and add the name of guide where it says title

---
title:
description:
related guides:
   - title:
     url:
status: coming soon
display: true
---

Resources/Instructions

#125

[NivenPrasad]

---

title: Overview of the Automation Creation Process
description: A guide for automation creators, ideators, and developers on how to navigate the 100 Automations Home Page and the workflow built for automation creation
related guides:
title:
url:
status: coming soon
display: true

The Automation Creation Workflow at 100 Automations

We have created a workflow tool in GitHub in the form of the Future Automations project board to help ideators, creators, and developers bring ideas and automations to life at whatever stage.

Central to developing those automations is the Automation Proposal template that we've created to help you take the automation from idea to development to completion.

You can go straight to the Future Automations Board or you can read on here to learn how the automation creation process works.

The New Ideas Ice Box

If you have a new idea even in the form of a passing thought, create an issue card and put it here. Don't know what makes a good automation? Don't worry, we've got a guide to help you.

The Half-baked Ideas Prioritized Backlog

Ideas that are more fully formed beyond an initial "just a thought" go here. If an issue card is here, it means no one is actively developing this idea further so these are up for grabs!

Idea Iteration in Progress

These are ideas that someone is actively completing the pre-development requirements for. These pre-development requirements, like creating good readme's or setting up good health files are designed to ensure our automations meet good minimum quality standards and promote better development practices as the automation gets developed.

Questions for the 100 Automations Team

The 100 Automations team is here to support you through the creation process and this part of the workflow allows you to communicate with the team on any issues specific to an automation proposal.

100 Automations Quality Team Signoff

Once an automation proposal is completed for pre-development requirements, it moves here to be checked by the 100 Automations Quality team to, again, ensure quality standards in the creation process.

Prioritized Backlog

After pre-development requirements are signed off on, proposals become ready to be developed. So if you're a builder and looking for an automation that has good documentation and requirements, then this is your place to go, self-assign an issue and start building!

In progress (actively working)

Review

The 100 Automations team will do a final review of the automation for workability and quality standards before it will be categorized as done.

Done

Not much else to be said on this!

Will not be worked on

Inevitably with the creation process, there are times when an automation has already been created or it has stopped in its tracks at an early stage where the person working on it cannot be reached for some time for whatever reason. In those rare occasions, we will move automations to this part of the workflow.

[NivenPrasad]

Status: In progress
Blockers: None
Availability: Available
Eta: By end of Monday to leave time for review by product on Tue or Wednesday if possible and then ready for team to see on Wednesday.

[NivenPrasad]

@mdothman @ExperimentsInHonesty Q for development - will including screenshots in the overview or for that matter, guides, pose any issues from a development standpoint?

[Olivia-Chiong]

Screenshots can be used in the guides and they will be saved in /assets/images/guides/guidename

[NivenPrasad]

Completed the draft in above comment but have not had a chance to get it reviewed (have been unwell last couple of days). We also need to confirm whether this would be better in the Future Automations wiki as opposed to a Overview/Guide (too long for an Overview was a good call-out so maybe whether it should be a Guide vs in the Wiki or both).

[NivenPrasad]

This has been broken up into 2: (1) Guides for Ideators and (2) Guide for Builders to be workshopped in the Future Automations Wiki.

[Olivia-Chiong]

We need to convert this to markdown.

[NivenPrasad]

---

title: How to build an automation
description: There are many ways to get involved in building an automation. This guide sets out how to get involved in automation building, depending on what level you are and how you'd like to get involved.
status: coming soon
display: true

How to build an automation

Want to Build an Automation?

You can help build automations that are at different phases and find opportunities that suit your level:

1. You have your own idea and you want to build it yourself
2. You want to build an automation from scratch but don’t have your own idea
3. You want to contribute to an automation that’s already being developed

See below for how to get started!

Build Your Own Automation

So you have an idea for an automation and want to build it yourself? You can either fill out this Automation Form to get started or if you're comfortable with GitHub, get started with this Automation proposal template.

If you use the Automation Form, one of the 100 Automations team will take the information, create an issue card for you in the automation creation workflow in GitHub, and reach out to you once that is ready.

If you use the Automation Proposal template, our automation workflow overview will help you get an understanding of how you can use this to develop automations.

When your automations get to the "In progress" phase of the workflow, be sure to read our Guide on Creating an Automation Repo to get you set up at the build phase.

Build From Automations Log

Don't have your own idea? We have a log of well-developed and documented automation ideas vetted by the 100 Automations team that need development. So you can jump right in and start developing.

To find an automation you'd like to build, go to the Automations Log here, self-assign yourself on the issue, and move it to the In Progress (actively working) column.

Again, our Guide on Creating an Automation Repo will help you get up and running at this phase.

Improve An Automation

Some automations are already in development but still need help. Click on the "needs help" part of an automation card on our home page and see what type of help is needed for that automation. To find out more about an automation, click on the Readme button.

Here is the anatomy of an automation card to hep you navigate around automations on our homepage.

Need help at any stage?

If you need help at any stage of the build process, be sure to move your automation card in the Futureautomations board to the Questions for the 100 Automations Team column.

If your automation needs help, in the form of peer review, maintenance, support for users, refactoring, or documentation, make sure to apply the "Needs help" and the type of help labels to your automation card.

Happy developing!

[NivenPrasad]

Status: In progress
Blockers: None
Availability: Available
Eta: Draft ready for review by Wednesday 02/24

[NivenPrasad]

Made some progress but got waylaid with some other work. Should have a complete draft by Saturday.

[NivenPrasad]

First draft ready for review by product. Please bullet point general comments and point out typos in bullet point format as a comment in this issue.

[Olivia-Chiong]

@akibrhast can you take a look at the screenshots here and parse it into the guide?

[henlatourrette]

I understand that there are two routes depending on whether I would submit an automation idea or I would build the automation.

For the case of submitting an idea:

• To keep the same tone as in the builder's guide, I would begin by saying "You can propose your idea through the workflow tool we have created for this purpose..." or something similar. And then add/or include the content from the Wiki link - which I think is also already included in here.

For the case of the Builder's view:

• I think it's perfect. There's the link to the Wiki Guide for Ideators included, which I think it's fine.

Anyway, I'd like to understand better how will this work from the user's perspective (how will a user arrive to this landing page?). But those are my comments so far.

[Olivia-Chiong]

My only concern about the length of the headers and how it will translate into the table of contents. As discussed during our meeting on 3/20/21 we will use a header for mobile

Breakpoints discussed

/**

• Breakpoints
  */
  $screen-desktop: 960px;
  $screen-tablet: 768px;
  $screen-mobile: 480px;

$bp-desktop-up: '(min-width: #{$screen-desktop})';
$bp-below-desktop: '(max-width: #{$screen-desktop - 1})';
$bp-tablet-up: '(min-width: #{$screen-tablet})';
$bp-below-tablet: '(max-width: #{$screen-tablet - 1})';
$bp-mobile-up: '(min-width: #{$screen-mobile})';
$bp-below-mobile: '(max-width: #{$screen-mobile - 1})';

/**

[NivenPrasad]

Next step: separate Builder's Guide which has already started in the above thread - make a file in the _guides folder

[NivenPrasad]

Status: In progress
Blockers: Working this week
Availability: Available
Eta: By Saturday Apr 24

[NivenPrasad]

See linked pull request. This should also fix #129