Administrate Automator

1. Overview
2. What is Administrate Automator?
3. Why We Built This
4. How to Get Started
5. How It Works
6. Example: Instructor Jump Ball
   1. Part 1: Serving the Invite Page
   2. Part 2: Handling Accept and Decline actions
   3. Part 3: Creating the Invite Template
7. Common Automation Use Cases
8. Where to Start

Overview

Administrate Automator lets you automate your work in Administrate — everything from custom workflows to integrations with systems and custom tools unique to your organization. Build automations that eliminate manual tasks, connect your systems, and scale your operations without adding headcount.

What is Administrate Automator?

Automator is a drag-and-drop workflow builder that lives inside Administrate. You don't need to know how to code, but if you do, you can use that too. It lets you automate Administrate and connect it to the rest of your tech stack.

Why We Built This

Training teams are drowning in manual work. Our customers told us they face three critical challenges:

Manual workflows that don't scale

Every booking approval, learner validation, invoice check, or pending confirmation requires a manual click. As your organization grows, these clicks multiply exponentially, and teams end up spending 2+ hours daily on repetitive admin tasks that could be automated.

Systems that don't talk to each other

Your data lives in silos, requiring constant manual copying to move information between systems. While out-of-the-box integrations solve some problems, they can't address every unique scenario, which means work gets duplicated across multiple platforms.

Every company has unique logic, policies, and workflows

Your approval processes, validation rules, and business logic are specific to your organization. Standard integrations can't accommodate every customer's individual requirements, which means we literally cannot build everything everyone needs, but you can.

Administrate Automator puts the power of automation directly in your hands, letting you build exactly what your organization needs.

How to Get Started

Administrate Automator is a paid add-on feature. To sign up, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or our Support team.

How It Works

Once Administrate Automator is enabled in your instance, make sure you have the “Automator Run” permission. You can access and manage your automations directly from the following screens in Administrate: Events, Accounts, Contacts, and Bookings.

If you already have automations:

• Navigate to your Available Automations page.
• Click the three-dot menu next to any automation to:
  • View the webhook to check execution logs.
  • Launch workflow to view and edit your automation.

If you're starting fresh:

• Click the Launch Automator button to open your dedicated n8n instance.
• Begin building your first automation workflow.

Building Automations

Administrate Automator uses n8n, which provides a visual workflow builder that connects to hundreds of apps and services. You can create automations triggered by events in Administrate or on a schedule, process data, make decisions based on your business logic, and take actions across your entire tech stack.

Building Event Automations

1. Click Launch Automator to go to your n8n instance.
2. Click Add Workflow > Add first step (or the + icon).
3. Search for Administrate Trigger and add it.

1. Select your credentials.
2. Select any of the event-related triggers (Event Created, Event Published, Event Updated) based on your need.
3. Write your query. By default, it’s prefilled with a minimal query that sends the object ID (the Event ID).

Once activated, your automation will appear in Administrate on the Available Automations page and within the Event screen.

Example: Instructor Jump Ball

In this example, we'll walk through setting up an automated workflow that sends teaching opportunities to multiple instructors at once. When instructors respond with a yes or no, the system captures their responses and assigns the event based on availability and priority rules — kind of like a jump ball in basketball, where the quickest (or highest priority) response wins.

What we'll build

This workflow handles the complete instructor invitation cycle:

• Part 1: Serves a custom webpage where instructors can view event details and respond.
• Part 2: Captures yes/no responses and updates Administrate accordingly.
• Part 3: Creates the invite template in Administrate Communication Templates.

Part 1: Serving the Invite Page

Step 1: Launch into your Automator instance

From your Automations page, launch Automator. You’ll land in your white-labeled n8n instance.

Step 2: Create your workflow

Create a new workflow and name it, for example, “Instructor Jump Ball.”

We'll build this workflow with two main components:

• Response page webhook
• Response handler webhook

Step 3: Set up the webhook node

First, we'll create the webhook that handles incoming URL requests.

1. Add a Webhook node to your workflow.
2. Configure it as follows:
   1. HTTP Method: GET
   2. Path: Leave as-is (take note of the webhook URL — you’ll use this in Part 3: Creating the Invite Template ).
   3. Authentication: none
   4. Respond: Using the Respond to Webhook node

Step 4: Add the “Get the Event and Instructor Info” node

Next, we'll create the node that retrieves the event and instructor information so we can pass it to the next node.

1. Add an HTTP node to your workflow.
2. Configure it as follows:
   1. HTTP Method: POST
   2. URL: https://api.getadministrate.com/graphql
   3. Authentication: Predefined Credential Type
   4. Credential Type: Administrate OAuth2 API
   5. Use the credential if already defined, or create a new credential.
   6. Toggle the Send Body field.
   7. Body Type Content: JSON
   8. Body Parameters: query
   9. Use the following as the value:

query{
  events(filters: [{field: id, operation: eq, value: "{{ $json.query.eventId }}"}], orderBy: [{field: code, direction: asc}, {field: timeZonedStart, direction: asc}]) {
    edges {
      node {
        id
        code
        title
        learningMode
        start
        end
        timeZoneName
        staff {
          edges {
            node {
              id
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Step 5: Set up the “Respond to Webhook” node

Finally, we'll create the node that serves the invitation page where instructors can accept or decline.

1. Add a Respond to Webhook node.
2. Respond With: Text

3. Response Body: add a simple HTML block that includes the event and instructor info we passed from the previous node, plus two buttons to accept or decline.

   <html lang="en">
     <p>Event: {{ $json.data.events.edges[0].node.title }}</p>
     <p>Event Code: {{ $json.data.events.edges[0].node.code }}</p>
     <p>Date: {{ $json.data.events.edges[0].node.start }} -- {{ $json.data.events.edges[0].node.end }}</p>
     <p>Timezone: {{ $json.data.events.edges[0].node.timeZoneName }}</p>
     <p>Would you like to teach this event?</p>
     <a href="<webhookBurl>/?type=accept&eventId={{ $json.data.events.edges[0].node.id }}&instructor={{ $('When this URL is hit').item.json.query.instructor }}">Accept</a>
     <a href="<webhookBurl>/?type=decline&eventId={{ $json.data.events.edges[0].node.id }}&instructor={{ $('When this URL is hit').item.json.query.instructor }}">Decline</a>
   </html>

4. Response Code: 200
5. Response Headers:
   1. Name: Content-Type
   2. Value: text/html; charset=UTF-8
6. Save.

We've now built the first part of this solution, which handles incoming requests to the invite URL and serves the page where instructors can respond.

Next, we'll build the logic that handles accept and decline responses and updates the Administrate Event accordingly.

Part 2: Handling Accept and Decline

Step 1: In the same workflow, add a new Webhook node

This webhook will receive the instructor's info, event ID, and their response (accept or decline).

Configure it as follows:

1.  
   1. HTTP Method: GET
   2. Path: Leave as-is (take note of this URL — you’ll update the previous step and replace <webhookBurl> with this one).
   3. Authentication: none
   4. Respond: Using the Respond to Webhook node

Step 2: Handle Accept vs Decline routing

We'll add logic to route the workflow differently based on whether the instructor accepted or declined the invite.

1. Add a Switch node.
2. Configure it as shown in the screenshot below:
   1. Mode: Rules
   2. Routing rules: as per the screenshot

Next, add a few HTTP nodes to update the event and assign the instructor based on responses.

Similar to the HTTP node we configured in Part 1, the setup here is the same. However, you can customize the queries and mutations to update the event. For example, adding notes about instructor responses (who responded, when, and their decision) or automatically assigning instructors to the event. You can also add custom logic using a Code node to handle FIFO (first-in, first-out) or any other business rules you need.

Once you've completed the workflow setup, test it to ensure everything works as expected. Refer to the n8n workflow execution and testing documentation for detailed guidance. When you're ready, activate the workflow to enable it in production.

Part 3: Creating the Invite Template

We'll use Administrate’s Communication Templates feature to create the invite template sent to instructors. This template will include a simple message and the invite URL generated by the workflow webhook you created in Part 1.

Create a template with audience Contacts with the following body:

Hello {{ contact.first_name }},
Are you available to teach {{ event.title }} on {{ event.classroom_start | datetime_format() }} ?
Click https://n8n.administratehq.com/webhook/<webhookurlpath>?type=request&eventId={{ event.encoded_id }}&instructor={{ contact.encoded_id }} to respond

Now you can use this template to send instructor invites via the ad-hoc email feature from the Event page.

From there, you can track instructor responses and see automatic assignments happen right in the Event.

Common Automation Use Cases

Pre-flight Event Validation

Check that facilities are booked, materials are uploaded, approvals are complete, and technical resources are operational. Alert relevant teams if anything is missing.

Credential and Access Provisioning

When an event is published or a learner enrolls, automatically generate security badges, provision building access, create virtual lab environments, and send login credentials.

Multi-stage Approval Workflows

Automatically route training requests to managers, compliance teams, budget holders, and facility coordinators based on your business rules. Send reminders, escalate delayed approvals, and update booking status once all sign-offs are complete.

Waitlist and Capacity Management

When courses fill up, automatically add learners to a waitlist and notify them of their position. When a spot opens, offer it to the next person with a time-limited acceptance window. If they don't respond, move to the next person automatically.

Invoice and Payment Automation

Generate invoices automatically when bookings are confirmed and send them to your accounting system. Trigger payment reminders for overdue invoices and reconcile payments back to learner records. For corporate clients, match PO numbers and route approvals automatically.

Where to Start?

1. Ensure Administrate Automator is enabled in your Administrate instance. If you don't see the automation options to launch your workspace, contact your Customer Success Manager.
2. Identify a repetitive task in your workflow that takes significant time or causes bottlenecks.
3. Launch your Automator instance and start with a simple automation — perhaps a notification workflow or a basic data sync.
4. Test thoroughly using the logs and webhook views to ensure your automation works as expected.
5. Scale gradually by adding more complex logic and integrating additional systems as you become comfortable with the platform.