Summary
"App Center" is one of the Global Tools for Planhat builders/admins
It's where you manage Automations and Integrations (and Connections)
With Integrations (and Connections) you can connect Planhat to external software, such as CRM systems, AI platforms, Support tools, and so on. You configure the sync of data to/from Planhat
Automations are one of the ways you can automatically act in response to data changes in Planhat, with the general format of "if x happens, do y"
Who is this article for?
Planhat builders/admins who configure their tenant for their team (e.g. CS Ops)
Article contents
Introduction
Data is at the heart of every business:
You need comprehensive, centralized data in order to fully understand your prospects and customers, and identify risks and opportunities etc.
And you need to be able to take effective action on that data:
use the data to prioritize your tasks so you make the most impact
and automate actions wherever possible, to save time
The App Center helps you to achieve all this. It incorporates two main features:
Integrations - this is how you can connect Planhat to other tools you may be using (e.g. Salesforce, or Intercom, or Snowflake, etc.), so you can sync that data into Planhat, and where appropriate send data back out from Planhat
App Center also includes Connections, which is a more simple way to connect up to certain external systems. You can use these in combination with Automations to carry out actions
Automations - this is one way you can automatically act on data in Planhat, configuring processes with the general structure of "when this data change occurs, do that"
Planhat includes a variety of Templated Automations, which are preconfigured for you and displayed in a simple "sentence" structure. You can easily customize various aspects using dropdown boxes. This makes it super easy for you to tailor Automations to suit your business
You can also create a completely Custom Automation if you would like to design something very personalized, from scratch, for the ultimate flexibility
In the App Center, you - as a Planhat builder/admin, such as CS Ops - can configure these features, for your whole team to benefit from.
📚 Additional resources
You can read more about our various individual Integrations here, and read our series of articles on Automations starting here.
Note that these articles were written for the previous version of Planhat (app.planhat.com), so some elements (particularly relating to where these features are located within Planhat) may be slightly out of date for upgraded Planhat (ws.planhat.com), but the main principles of Integrations and Automations remain the same.
📌 Planhat versions
The App Center in upgraded Planhat (ws.planhat.com) is an enhanced version of the Operations Module in the previous version of Planhat (app.planhat.com).
Navigating to App Center
App Center is one of the Global Tools for admins that you will find on the left-hand side of the top gray bar of your Planhat tenant.
If App Center is not pinned, you will find it under the ellipsis symbol, as shown below:
If you would like to pin App Center to your top gray bar, mouse over its name in the list, and then click on the open pin (shown above). You'll then see the App Center symbol in the gray bar, as shown below. (You can pin a maximum of 3 of these Global Tools for admins.)
When you are within "App Center", you'll see "App Center" stated in the gray bar, as in the screenshot below.
App Center main screen
When you open up App Center, you'll see something like this:
Click the image to view it enlarged
Let's take a look at the different components here in further detail.
📌 Important to note
The apps shown in this initial view are the apps (Integrations and Automations) that have been set up in your organization's Planhat tenant, and not all of the possible apps.
So, for example, if you can't see a specific Integration here (for HubSpot, let's say), it simply means that you (and your teammates) haven't yet selected and applied it to your Planhat tenant.
Pre-built category filters
We start with "All apps", as shown. "All apps" includes both Integrations and Automations.
Below the "All apps" filter, you'll see a variety of other categories that you can select to filter down the apps shown in the main panel to the right:
Created by me
Recently most active
Integrations
Automations
Private apps
These are easy ways for you to quickly jump to particular groups of apps.
Below these built-in categories, you'll see labels.
Labels
Labels work like filters, except you can apply multiple labels to a single app. Think about which categories would be useful for you, such as "AI Automations" - you can create these as your labels.
Simply click "+ Add label" at the bottom of the list (shown above) to set up a new label, and choose its name and color.
Then, in the main app view (the right-hand panel), you'll see the "Label" column on the right.
Click the image to view it enlarged
To apply a label to an app, simply click in the label column for that row, and then use the checkboxes to select one or more labels. (You can see at the bottom that you can also create a new label here.)
Search
As with many other parts of upgraded Planhat, there is a "Find in view..." search box within App Center.
This is another quick and easy way to find a specific app within your list, and it's visible regardless of any filter/label you have selected on the left-hand side, so you can use these tools in combination.
Table
Now let's take a look at the main table in the middle/right of the App Center.
Click the image to view it enlarged
This table is a great overview of your current apps, especially when it comes to Automations - you can see how many times each Automation has run, whether there have been any issues in the last week, and how long ago it last ran.
As well as the pre-built filters and custom labels we discussed previously, you can click on a suitable column header to sort by that property. Click the same column header again to switch between ascending and descending order.
You can also view and edit the labels in the far right-hand column, as we previously discussed.
Finally, you can disable/enable your apps using the toggle switch shown.
Adding a new app or Connection
If you would like to add a new app (Integration or Automation), click the orange "+ New app" in the top-right corner of App Center (shown below). For the next steps, see the next section of the article below.
Click the image to view it enlarged
📌 Connections
To add a new Connection, click "Connections" in the bottom-left corner of App Center (shown above), and then click "+ Connection" in the top-right of the new window.
Connections are a particular type of basic Integration - a way to connect to an external system. You can then use these Connections in Automations.
Currently, we have standard Connections for AI tools:
OpenAI
Azure OpenAI
PaLM 2
You can also set up custom Connections here.
Apps Library
Once you've clicked the orange "+ New app" button in the top-right of the App Center, you'll see this menu - the "Apps Library":
Click the image to view it enlarged
With "All Apps" selected on the left-hand side, you can see all Automation Templates and Integrations.
You can use the search box in the right-hand side to quickly jump to a specific Automation or Integration. This is present whichever category filter you are in (which we'll discuss next), but it's most useful when you're in the unfiltered "All apps".
Down the left-hand side, you'll see a series of categories - click into these, and the list of (cards for) apps will be filtered on the right. This is a great way for you to find a specific app, or browse to see what's available.
For example, here you can see the Integrations related to Support:
Click the image to view it enlarged
And here are Automation Templates that dynamically assign records (Tasks or Companies):
We particularly recommend the new built-in AI functionality shown below. These options are easy ways for you to quickly see impactful results from an OpenAI Connection.
📚 Additional resources
Remember, you can read more about our various individual Integrations here, and read our series of articles on Automations starting here.
Note that these articles were written for the previous version of Planhat (app.planhat.com), so some elements (particularly relating to where these features are located within Planhat) may be slightly out of date for upgraded Planhat (ws.planhat.com), but the main principles of Integrations and Automations remain the same.
Custom Automations
If you would like to create a fully Custom Automation, rather than modifying a Templated Automation, you can click "+ Custom Automation" in the top left of the App Library.
This opens up the following modal, where you can design your Custom Automation from scratch:
For more on Custom Automations, you can refer to our separate article here. (This referenced article was written for the previous version of Planhat (app.planhat.com), so some elements may be slightly out of date for upgraded Planhat (ws.planhat.com), but the main principles of designing Custom Automations remain the same.)