Automated Tasks

Automated Tasks are part of Amplitude’s Data Assistant feature. Automated tasks let data governors define conditions and actions that the system then performs automatically. It automates repetitive clean-up workflows by taking recommendations provided by the Data Assistant and transforming those recommendations into automatic actions. For example, an automated task can automatically delete events if they have been unused for 90 days.

After they have been created, automated tasks run daily.

Access your automated tasks from the Data Assistant by going to Data > Assistant > Automated Tasks. If you have active automations, they display along with a current count of the affected events. If you don't have any active automations, you can create one.

By default, automated tasks operate across all projects within a workspace. You can specify for the automation to only search through a single project.

Types of automated tasks

You can select any of the following types of tasks to automate:

• Clean up stale events
• Clean up single-day events
• Clean up unused events

Clean up stale events

This task removes events that haven't had any recent volume. This indicates that Amplitude isn't ingesting the events and they're no longer of value. The task inspects your organization for events that have a last seen date in a configurable number of days. For example, events that haven't been ingested in 90 days.

When the automated task finds events that match those criteria, it schedules them for deletion. All people using those events are notified through email or Slack about the impending deletion. Anywhere the events are being used (for example, in a chart), a banner appears notifying users about the upcoming deletion. If anyone wants to keep the event, they can do so through the email or banner notification. If no one elects to keep the event within 30 days, the event is deleted. The 30-day timeframe to delete events is not configurable. Deleted events no longer appear in the event drop-down menu and are blocked from future ingestion.

Historical charts or data aren't affected.

Clean up single-day events

This task removes accidental or one-time test events that can negatively impact or clutter up your taxonomy. The task inspects your organization for events that:

• Have the same first seen and last seen dates and;
• That date is more than a configuraable number of days before the inspection date. (For example, 90 days before the inspection date.)

When the automated task finds events that match those criteria, it schedules those events for deletion. All people using those events are notified through email or Slack about the impending deletion. Anywhere the events are being used (for example, in a chart), a banner appears notifying users about the upcoming deletion. If anyone wants to keep the event, they can do so through the email or banner notification. If no one elects to keep the event within 30 days, the event is deleted. The 30-day timeframe to delete events is not configurable. Deleted events no longer appear in the event drop-down menu and are blocked from future ingestion.

Historical charts or data aren't affected.

Clean up unused events

This task optimizes your event volume by ensuring that all your ingested events are being actively used. The tasks inspects your organization for events that haven't been queried in 90 days. When it finds those events, it can notify you about them, schedule to delete those events within 30 days, and notify you when those events get deleted.

Your users can save events through the notification from the automated task or through the Data Assistant. Saved events aren't deleted, even if they're not queried during the time window.

If the task deletes an event, this also blocks future ingestion of that event. Any data that isn't collected because of an event's deleted status is not recoverable. Historical charts or data aren't affected. The deleted event still appears in them.

You can manually recover a deleted event at any time.

Setting up an automated task

You can manually set up an automated task. Alternately, the Data Assistant can proactively identify tasks for you.

To manually set up an automated task

1. Go to Data > Assistant > Automated Tasks tab.
2. Click Get Started.
3. Complete the set up prompts. This includes:
   • Setting the threshold (in days). By default, this is 30 days for single-day events and 90 days for stale events.
   • Specifying any event tags that the automation rule should ignore. For example, if you never want to remove creation events, add a create tag to the ignore field. Review your events to make sure you are specifying the exact tag that's applied to your event.
4. Click Set Up Automation.

To set up an automated task through the Data Assistant

If Amplitude detects events that meet a task’s criteria, those suggested tasks appear in the Suggestions view under Data > Assistant. If automation is available for that task, a banner appears above the suggestion.

Click the banner to turn on automation for future matching events. You are taken to the window to complete the task set up.

Removing an automation

You can remove any current automation. When removing an automation, you can specify if you want to affect any pending changes or to only affect future changes.

To remove an automated task

1. Go to Data > Assistant > Automated Tasks.
2. Click View Automation.
3. In the automated task window, click the three-dot option menu.
4. Click Remove Automation.
5. Confirm whether you want to also remove any pending changes from the task and then click Remove.

Recovering deleted events

You can recover any deleted event at any time.

To recover a deleted event

1. Go to Data > Events.
2. Click Deleted Events.
3. Select the event you want and click Restore.