# Set up an automation > Work through the General, Configuration and Overview steps, then activate the automation so it runs on its schedule. Open **Automations** in the sidebar. Press **New automation** to pick one from the catalog, or open an existing automation. On a phone or tablet, open its **⋯** menu and choose **Settings**. Setup has three steps, and you can move between them freely. Nothing is saved until you press **Save**, and changes you have not saved are discarded when you move to another step. Before you start, check the project selector in the navigation is showing the Google Ads account you mean. Settings are stored per account. ## Step 1: General General holds the automation's name and its schedule. The name is what the Automations list shows, so give a copy a name that tells it apart from the others. Then choose how often the automation should run: - **Daily** runs once a day at the time you pick. - **Weekly** runs once a week, on the day and at the time you pick. - **Monthly** runs once a month, on the day of the month and at the time you pick. - **Hourly** runs every hour and takes no time of day. Only [Ads stopped running alert](/docs/automations/ads-stopped-running-alert) offers it, because that check looks at the last few hours. Every other automation runs on whole days. Times use the timezone of the Google Ads account, so a daily automation set to 09:00 runs at 09:00 in the account's own timezone rather than yours. A new automation starts on a daily schedule at the hour you created it, so you can activate it straight away or pick a different time. [Search Partners cost alert](/docs/automations/search-partners-cost-alert) starts on a weekly schedule instead, on the day you created it, because its long comparison window barely moves from one day to the next. If you remove the schedule, the automation cannot be activated until you set one again. ## Step 2: Configuration Configuration holds everything that decides what the automation looks at and what it does. Settings are grouped into sections, and an automation only shows the sections it uses: - **Filters** choose which campaigns, keywords and search terms are included. - **Date range** sets how much history each run reads. - **Thresholds** are what something has to achieve before the automation acts on it. - **Criteria** define what the automation treats as healthy, and therefore what it reports as a problem. - **Analysis** shapes how the report is put together. - **Actions** decide what the automation does with what it found. Every setting has a short description under its name explaining what it does, so you can work through a section without leaving the page. ### Standard values Most settings arrive already filled in with a sensible standard value, so an automation is usable without you tuning anything. Change the ones that matter for the account and leave the rest. Once you save, those values belong to this account. Later changes we make to the standard values do not reach an account that has already been saved. A field left empty means the setting is off or unrestricted. An empty campaign label means every campaign is included, and a threshold of 0 means that gate is not applied. ### Units A field that holds a percentage or a number of days says so inside the box rather than in its name. A ROAS threshold is a percentage, so 300 means the campaign has to return three times its spend, and a date range is a number of days. ## Step 3: Overview Overview is the summary. Each section is listed with the values currently in force, so you can read back the whole setup in one place before committing to it. Every row has an **Edit** button that takes you to the step that holds it. At the top is the activation panel. A grey dot means the automation is not active. A green dot means it is. ### Activating Press **Activate automation**. From then on the automation runs on its schedule. Two things have to be in place first: 1. **A schedule.** Without one, the button reads **Set a schedule** and takes you back to General instead. An automation with no schedule has nothing to run on. 2. **An active Flowboost subscription.** Without one, Flowboost tells you and offers to show you the plans. Your settings are kept. Activation applies immediately. Overview always shows the saved settings, because changes you did not save on an earlier step are discarded when you leave it. ### Deactivating Press **Deactivate automation**. Scheduled runs stop straight away. Settings, run history and the changes earlier runs made are all kept, so activating again picks up where you left off. ## Running it once, by hand **Run now** runs the automation immediately against the selected account, whether or not it is active. You find it at the bottom of the Overview step, next to **Back to overview**, and in each automation's card or row on the Automations page. This is the quickest way to see what an automation would do before you let it run on a schedule. Run now needs an active Flowboost subscription. It is also disabled while you have unsaved changes, so the run always reflects the settings you can see. Runs by hand are rate limited. If you trigger several in quick succession, Flowboost asks you to wait a moment. ## Who gets the emails Recipients are not part of an automation's settings. A finished run always emails the people watching this account when there is something to report, and you manage that list in the project's **Notifications** settings, so several automations share one list. An alert that has emailed stays quiet for seven days while its problem persists, so an hourly alert does not fill your inbox. A run that finds nothing wrong ends that quiet period, so a problem that comes back emails you again straight away. Emails about changes an automation applied are sent on every run. ## What happens next Each run is recorded. For an automation that changes your account, the run lists every change it made: see [Run status and changes](/docs/automations/review-and-apply-changes).