What Are Operations and How to Count Them
IN THIS ARTICLE
Let's get into detail about how to count an operation.
An operation in Albato is a run of an automation step. It means that each automation step creates one operation. The number of operations will differ for automations with API and webhooks triggers. Let's take a look at both examples.
How to count operations with a webhook trigger
When setting up an automation, pay attention to the icon next to the trigger’s name to identify the data transferring mode.
This is a webhook icon.
How do we count operations? Here is an example.
This automation has three steps.
Since Facebook is a webhook trigger, Albato doesn’t make any requests to receive the data. Facebook will send data (webhook) to Albato when a trigger occurs. This automation will spend three operations for a single run.
If we set up the Incoming data filter for the trigger, and it filters out the data, then we spend only one operations, because we filtered the request and didn't let it go through the next steps.
How to count operations with an API trigger
Automations with API triggers spend operations differently. In this case, Albato makes requests for new data to a source app once in a while. The request frequency can be configured in the automation Start Schedule section. Let's suppose our automation runs every 15 minutes and receives 1 unit of new data in a whole day.
This automation also has three steps, but this trigger doesn’t send Albato data. Albato makes requests to receive new data every 15 min.
That means, this automation will spend one operation per request every 15 min, as follows four operations per hour.
24 hours in a day: 24×4 = 96 operations per day we will need to trigger this automation.
In case of the absence of data or filter operation, the number of requests will be the same. In case you receive data, the automation will spend an operation for each step.
To configure the automation start schedule, open the automation in the Automation Builder and click Set schedule.
The Start schedule defines how often Albato sends requests to the source app to check for new data. The selected frequency directly affects how many operations the automation consumes.
While you can set a lower request frequency to save operations, make sure the source app retains new data long enough. Many apps store data for about an hour, so running the trigger once per hour is often the best balance between data completeness and transaction usage.
You can find a detailed explanation of how the start schedule works in this article.
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