all questions and answers from Webex chat and transcript
Q: What is the difference between Quick Flows and Quick Automate?
A: Technically, you can do almost the same thing — automating something. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re always writing the same prompt to an agent (e.g., “give me a summary of my tickets today, then send me a Slack message at 7 AM”), that’s a good opportunity to move it to either a Flow or an Automation. The differences are: (1) you have more connector actions available in Automate, (2) Automate is targeted to a different audience than Flows, and (3) there are more advanced use cases with Automate.
Q: Can we send emails through Quick Automate?
A: It depends on the provider. If you’re talking about a particular provider such as Google or Outlook, and that provider exposes the action of sending an email, then yes, you should be able to do it. Also keep in mind that you can connect your own systems — so if you have a REST API or a custom MCP server, you can configure that as well.
Q: Can we connect to Kiro from Automate?
A: Not to my knowledge directly. However, if you have an API that is capable of connecting to Kiro, you can expose that API to Quick and use it through Automate that way.
Q: I understand automating the approval process, but what’s the difference/benefit between the Quick Suite interface vs. an employee filling out a form which is automated?
A: For the demo specifically, there isn’t really a huge difference — good catch. The purpose of the demo was to showcase how to connect the different systems (Jira, S3, and Knowledge Bases). The use case could have been anything — like monitoring stock prices and sending an email if a stock drops by a certain amount. The key takeaway is how to connect and chain different systems together in Automate.
Q: I have a use case where I will run SQL and then the results are to be categorized by an LLM, then send an email notification. Is this a use case for Quick Automate?
A: Yes. If the SQL is something you’re exposing via a dashboard, you can put it in a Space and then have a custom agent in Automate look at that dashboard and perform whatever actions you need (like categorizing results and sending notifications).
Q: Since we have multiple connectors already for Outlook, etc., why do we need to go for an API for Automate?
A: You don’t. If the third-party provider (Outlook, Gmail, etc.) already offers the action you need (like sending an email), use it directly. The API option is a last resort — only needed if there’s something that isn’t available yet or hasn’t been exposed as a native action.
Q: Can an LLM be integrated with Automate?
A: You cannot bring your own model directly into Automate, but you can front your model with Amazon Bedrock. Bedrock is a supported action in Quick Automate. To set it up: go to Manage Account → Permissions → AWS Actions → create a new action and connect to a Bedrock agent. Once configured, that action will be listed and available in your automation workflows.
Q: We can’t see Textract or S3 in our listed actions. Is there a separate configuration needed?
A: Yes, it’s a matter of permissions. Make sure your user is not limited under Custom Permissions, and ensure the IAM role you’re using has access to the services you need. Check that you’re not being restricted from certain action connections. If the issue persists, refer to the prior session on first-party connectors (which covers Textract, Bedrock, and S3 setup in detail).