What is AppConnect?

AppConnect is Insightly’s workflow automation platform. It connects Insightly to thousands of other apps and automates the repetitive work between them, using no-code workflows called Recipes.

On this page:

• The basics
• Enabling AppConnect
• Adding a connection
• Building your first Recipe
• Where things live
• Community Library
• Watch: introductory recordings

The basics

What is a Recipe?

A Recipe is a set of steps AppConnect follows to move data and trigger actions between your apps. Every Recipe is built from Triggers and Actions: a Trigger watches for something happening in a connected app, and an Action carries out a specific operation in response, in Insightly or elsewhere.

Recipes support conditional logic, data transformations, and duplicate detection, so they can handle real integration work rather than simple one-step handoffs. You build and manage Recipes from Assets > Recipes. Opening a Recipe takes you to its edit page, where you can edit, clone, delete, or start it, and review its Jobs, Connections, Versions, and Settings.

Tasks and how they’re counted

A Task is a unit of billable work: it’s created every time a Recipe performs an action that uses compute resources. A single Recipe run (a “job”) can use multiple Tasks depending on how much work the trigger event requires.

Monthly Task allowances are purchased in blocks: 25,000, 100,000, 250,000, or 500,000 Tasks per month. Higher volumes are available by arrangement with your Insightly sales team. In general, successful actions count as Tasks and failed actions don’t, including successful steps that ran before a later step failed.

See Auto Stop Protection for what happens if you approach your Task limit.

Enabling AppConnect

⚠️ This can’t be undone. Once AppConnect is enabled on your account, it cannot be disabled.

AppConnect is enabled by Insightly’s sales team, not self-serve. Contact sales@insightly.com to get started. Once it’s on, a default Insightly connection is created automatically and the account owner gets access; an admin then adds any other users who need it from System Settings > AppConnect > Add User.

Once enabled, AppConnect appears in the nine-dot app menu at the top right of the screen for users with access.

Adding a connection

1. Go to Assets > Connections and click Create a Connection.
2. Select the app you want to connect to.
3. Name the connection and choose which folder it belongs in.
4. Enter the required credentials. Some apps need an API key and host; others don’t.
5. Click Connect.

From the Connections page, opening a connection lets you disconnect or delete it. A connection that’s in use by an active Recipe can’t be deleted until that Recipe no longer references it.

Building your first Recipe

This is the short version. For worked, real-world examples, see AppConnect Recipe Examples; for the full mechanics of each step type, see Building AppConnect Recipes.

1. Go to Assets > Recipes and click Create a recipe.
2. Name it (or leave it blank for an auto-generated name) and choose a folder.
3. Pick a starting point: trigger from an app, run on a schedule, trigger from a webhook, manage other recipes, build a callable recipe, build an API endpoint, or build a Slack bot command.
4. Set up the trigger: choose a connected app (or connect a new one), pick the trigger event, and optionally add a trigger condition so only matching events run the Recipe.
5. Add actions under the + icon: an action in an app, an IF or IF/ELSE condition, a repeat action, a call to another recipe, a stop, or error handling. Keep adding steps with additional + icons as needed.
6. Click Save to checkpoint your progress, then Test to check the Recipe runs as intended. Errors highlight the step that caused them.
7. Click Exit when you’re done editing, or Start Recipe when you’re ready to run it. A running Recipe can be stopped at any time.

Where things live

Dashboard

Shows how your Recipes are performing: successful and failed jobs, Recipes used, and Tasks consumed, filterable by time period and folder. Usage also tracks on the Billing & Account page, which updates every 10% of usage.

Connections

Lists every connected app with its connection name, time connected, and status. Click through for details, including which Recipes use that connection.

Tools: Lookup tables, Properties, Connector SDK

Lookup tables work like a cross-reference table inside a Recipe: import or build one manually to look up frequently used data. Limit is 10 columns and 10,000 entries, imported from CSV.

Properties are named, account-wide values (similar to environment variables) that any Recipe can reference, useful for things like a shared notification email address used across multiple Recipes. Include “password,” “key,” or “secret” in a property’s name to mask its value. Up to 100 properties per account.

The Connector SDK, also under Tools, lets you build a custom connector for an app AppConnect doesn’t support natively, using JSON, XML, or URL-encoded/multipart form data. Custom connectors are private to their owner by default and can be shared publicly once built.

Community Library

A searchable library of template Recipes and custom connectors shared by Insightly and other users, meant to give you a head start rather than building from a blank canvas. Search or filter by app, or browse Insightly’s recommended apps; selecting a second app narrows results to templates that use both. Every Community Recipe connects to Insightly.

Watch: introductory recordings

🎬 Video: Introducing Insightly AppConnect
A product overview with Insightly’s founder and a customer walkthrough of AppConnect’s core value.

🎬 Video: AppConnect Masterclass, Vol. 1
A live demo from Insightly’s customer success team building real integrations, drag-and-drop, no code.