Box Automate is an agentic workflow automation solution built natively on the Box content platform. Box Automate provides a drag-and-drop visual builder with parallel and conditional branch routing, logic, loops, and a comprehensive set of triggers and outcomes to power business process automation.
Box Automate integrates natively with Box AI, Box Extract, Box Forms, Box Doc Gen, Box Hubs, and Box Sign. Depending on your plan, you can build end-to-end content workflows that span document generation, e-signatures, AI-driven metadata extraction, and multi-stage approvals within a single platform.
Visual workflow builder
You can build workflows using a visual builder that supports a robust set of triggers, conditional branch routing, parallel and merge branches,, loops, dynamic variables, and agentic steps.
Triggers
Triggers define what starts a workflow. Supported types include:
- File or folder events
- Task completion or status changes
- File Request
- Metadata changes
- Box Forms submissions
- Manual start
- Box Sign requests
- Scheduling
Outcomes
Outcomes define what happens when a workflow runs:
- File and folder actions — move, rename, copy files, or create folder structures
- Metadata actions* — apply, update, or extract metadata using AI
- Task and notification actions — assign approval or general tasks and send email notifications
- Box Doc Gen** — generate documents from templates
- Box Sign** — route documents for e-signature
- AI Agent outcomes** — run custom AI agents or Box Extract agents for metadata extraction at scale
- Multi-agent orchestration — coordinate multiple AI agents in a single workflow
- Custom HTTP — call external APIs directly from a workflow
*Enterprise/Enterprise +
**Enterprise Advanced Only
Agentic AI
Box Automate brings AI directly into your workflows with AI agents, automated metadata extraction, AI-based routing, human-in-the-loop validation and continual learning that adapts to new document formats over time. Including an approval task to review AI outcomes can help with ensuring accuracy.
Collaboration and administration
You can share workflows with role-based permissions, and track workflow runs.
Integrations
Box Automate connects natively with Box Forms, Box Doc Gen, Box Sign, Box Extract, Box Hubs, Box AI Studio, and Box Apps.
| Use Case | Description |
| Procurement | Vendor data is posted to Box, where an AI extraction agent pulls key metadata. An employee reviews the extracted values, a purchase order is generated using Box Doc Gen |
| Employee Onboarding | New employees upload required documents such as a driver's license or I-9 form to Box. An AI agent supports the validation of the documents, expiration dates are tracked as metadata, and notifications are sent automatically before documents expire. |
| Multi-Stage Approvals | Teams create SOPs or marketing materials and route them through multi-stage approval workflows. Approvers receive tasks with approval or rejection options, and the workflow branches based on each decision. |
| Financial Document Intake | A finance team submits documents via a file request. Box Automate renames, tags, and moves each file into the appropriate folder based on metadata such as store number or account. |
| Tax Return Data Extraction | Financial documents are received weekly. Box Extract pulls key fields such as amount payable, refundable amount, financial year. Emails are auto-generated for admin review. |
| Loan and Lease Processing | A new opportunity is opened and a document is uploaded to Box. AI extracts metadata, an employee verifies accuracy, and the extracted metadata updates the corresponding record. |
| Project Management | A new project is added to the roadmap and relevant documents are uploaded to Box. The workflow creates a Jira ticket linked to the Box file and notifies stakeholders. |
| Scientific Publications Management | Research institutions ingest, manage, route, and secure publication records and technical reports across workflows and external reporting endpoints. |
Known Limitations
- Templates are not available for Box Automate
Workflow Execution
- Max 10 branches (including ELSE) and max 20 conditions per IF are supported.
- Workflow deactivation does not terminate workflows that are already in progress.
- The Agent outcome works only when a File/Folder ID is referenced, not the name.
- The Task outcome fails when the folder or enterprise setting is "Only folder owners and co-owners can send collaborator invites."
Collaboration and Permissions
- The Add/Remove Collaborator outcome does not support external email addresses.
- Groups with permission type “Admin” and “Group members” aren’t yet supported in the outcome in Automate
- Add collaboration outcome doesn’t support “Co-owner” role
Variables and Metadata
- There is no support for metadata from Current Outcome. As a workaround, use a metadata variable without linking to an outcome ID.
- Hidden metadata templates are not supported in the Add Metadata outcome or metadata conditions.
- You cannot add all metadata form field values to created files or folders as metadata without mapping them individually.
Box Sign Integration
- Sign does not support tracking status via metadata for "in progress" status.
- The Sign outcome supports only signers from the email field in Forms, not from any text field.
- There is no File Name variable from the Sign outcome.
Automate Interoperability
- Automate workflows are not fully interoperable with Box features such as Information Barriers, Governance, Box Shield, Box Zones, and Box Keysafe.
- The Move and Copy Content control in the Admin Console “Prevent collaborators from moving or copying content to a folder where they have a higher permission level,” as described here, does not apply to Automate workflows, therefore moving or copying content info folders via Automate workflow may still result in some users being granted higher permission level. You can mitigate this by allowing users to create workflows only with folders where they have Owner/co-owner permission in Box Automate enablement settings.