# What an automation can do

**Category:** [Project Manager](https://help.totalctrl.app/hc/totalctrl/totalctrl-help-center/en-US/categories/project-manager)
**Updated:** 2026-08-19

## Actions on the task that triggered the rule

- **Set the status to** — give it a column name, for example "In Review". A name that does not match a column on the project fails the run and says so, rather than doing nothing quietly.
- **Assign it to** — by email address. Leave it empty to unassign. An address that is not a member of your workspace fails the run.
- **Set the priority to** — low, medium, high or critical.
- **Set the due date to** — either a date, or a number of days from today: `+3` is three days from now, `-1` was yesterday, empty clears it. Days are usually what you want, because a fixed date written into a rule is wrong the day after you write it.
- **Add the label** — by name. If the project does not have that label yet it is created.
- **Post a comment** — appears on the task like any other comment.
- **Create a subtask called** — a real child task under the triggering task. If the triggering task is itself a subtask, the new one is created beside it rather than below, because subtasks go one level deep.

## Notifications

**Notify (email)** sends to an address you choose, with your own subject and message.
## Changes made by a rule are real changes

Anything an automation does shows in the task's history and fires the same events a person would. That means one rule can trigger another, and your webhooks see automated changes exactly as they see manual ones. It also means a rule that sets a status can trigger a rule watching for that status.
## Rules cannot loop

A chain of automations stops after three, and a rule can never be run twice by the same chain — so a rule whose action re-triggers itself runs once, not for ever. When that happens the run appears in the history with a message saying it was stopped and why, rather than silently not happening.

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## Related Articles

- [Subscribing to project events with webhooks](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/project-automation-webhooks)
- [Project Manager overview](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/project-manager-overview)
- [Working with Tasks](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/working-with-tasks)
- [Conditions: reacting to one value](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/project-automation-conditions)
- [Every trigger, and what it carries](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/project-automation-triggers)

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