Automation & AI

A configured workflow turns permission into ongoing activity. An Automation or AI task can read, change, or deliver data without a person repeating the original setup. An AI client can request operations on a user's behalf. Administrators approving that work need to understand the authority it holds and which decisions its inputs are allowed to influence.

The person configuring a process, the person starting it, and the account or resource owning execution can have different permissions. A process built for one partner's files therefore needs both suitable execution permissions and rules that keep incoming values within its intended work.

Configuration and Execution

Permission to configure a workflow and permission to perform its file operations are related but distinct. A workflow uses its own execution permissions. A restriction on the API key that saved its configuration does not necessarily become a restriction on the resulting workflow.

The same distinction applies to connected systems. Files.com controls which operations a user or workflow may request; the remote system controls what the connection's stored credentials can do there. A Workspace limits the Files.com resources available to its workflow without imposing equivalent permissions on an external account or an Agent host.

Ownership and Inputs

Business processes need to continue when the person who built them changes responsibilities. Site-owned and Workspace-owned resources support that continuity. User-owned workflows use their owner's permissions and follow their version's ownership and lifecycle rules. Choose that relationship deliberately and identify who maintains the finished process.

Input values can influence a destination, recipient, or program argument when the configured process uses them that way. Parsing a file or transforming a value does not establish that its sender may choose the resulting action. Keep fixed decisions in configuration, and validate the business choices that incoming data is allowed to make.

Instructions to an AI client describe the work you want. Product permissions determine the work it is allowed to perform. The information supplied to an AI provider or external client is a separate data-handling decision, including any results the client retains after Files.com access ends.

Continuing and Ending Work

Before ending an integration, identify its credentials, triggers, scheduled work, remote authorizations, and files already delivered. Access Revocation distinguishes ending an account's access from stopping resources configured to continue independently. Review the process itself when the intended outcome is to stop its work.