Automations#

An automation turns a table of rows into videos: one video per row, for every template the table feeds.

Each row holds the content of one video — a product, a property, a job ad, a customer — and each column holds one piece of it: the headline, the price, the photo. Link the table to a template, press Render, and every row becomes a video made from that template.

Automations live at json2video.com/dashboard/automations, between Templates and Render logs in the dashboard menu.

What an automation is made of#

One row makes one video per linked template. Feed the same rows to a 16:9 template and a 9:16 template and each row makes two videos — each template with its own mapping, its own filter and its own results.

The three tabs#

An automation opens on three tabs:

The header has the automation's name (the pencil renames it) and a red Delete automation button.

Why not just a spreadsheet and a loop#

Because a spreadsheet cannot tell you what happened to each video.

An automation keeps the data and the state of the video made from it. Every row shows its own status, when it rendered, how long its video has left and — if something went wrong — what went wrong, in that row. You can filter to the rows that failed and retry only those.

The other half is that every row is checked before anything is charged. The most common cause of a failed render is a field that arrived empty. An automation finds those rows first, marks them, and leaves them out, so you are not billed for videos that were never going to work. See What makes a row invalid.

The short version#

New to automations? At the foot of the Automations list, Start from an example creates a working one — rows, template and mapping — in one step, and its first render is a single video. → Start from an example

1. Create an automation. The easiest way is from a template: its variables become the columns, already typed and already mapped. → Creating an automation
2. Fill in the rows, import them from a CSV or JSON file, or connect a Google Sheet, a CSV at a URL or your own API and let the automation read it. → The dataset · Syncing a connected source
3. Link a template, if the automation did not start from one, and say which column feeds which variable. → Templates and the Workflow tab
4. Press Validate to see which rows are ready. → What makes a row invalid
5. Press Preview on a row to watch its video in your browser, before rendering anything. → Previewing a row
6. Press Render. You are told how many rows will render, how many are left out and why, what it will cost and where the videos go — before anything starts. → Rendering videos

Things worth knowing before you start#

These are what people are most often surprised by. Each one is explained in full on the page it belongs to.

• A rendered video is deleted after 7 days. The link in the table stops working. Add a destination to the template in the Workflow tab — a webhook, an FTP or SFTP server, or an Amazon S3 bucket — and every video is also delivered somewhere that keeps it. → Destinations
• A connected source is read-only. If the rows come from a Google Sheet, a CSV at a URL or an API, you edit them at the origin, not here. Import and detach turns them into a table you own — and stops reading the origin for good. → Syncing
• A template that repeats scenes needs a list in one cell. A Google Sheet or a CSV cannot hold one. Import a JSON file, connect an API, or type the items in a table you own. → List columns
• A photo, a voice or subtitles is not a URL, it is a field with settings. The column that feeds it holds the whole thing and is edited in its own window. A column of plain links still works: the link fills the file and the template's own settings are kept. → A column of links can feed a photo
• A row that already has a video is not rendered again unless you ask. Rendering it again is a new video and a new charge, so the Render videos dialog makes you tick a box for it. → Rendering again
• A row changed at the origin renders again. When a sync brings a new value for a row, that row is ready to render again on the next run. Its previous video is kept.

Limits#

The numbers below are the current defaults. The screens tell you when you have reached one, and why.

Your email must be verified before your first batch, on every plan. Until it is, the Render videos dialog says so, with a lock icon, and its button stays disabled.

Whatever the plan, one automation holds at most 20,000 rows or 20 MB, at most 200 columns, and at most 100 items in a list cell. A file you import, and a source you connect, can be at most 5 MB. One automation feeds at most 20 templates, and one template delivers to at most 10 destinations.

Not available through the API#

Automations are a dashboard feature. There is no public API, CLI or MCP support for creating them, mapping them or starting batches. To drive the same thing from your own code, call POST /v2/movies once per record with a template and that record's variables — that is what an automation does for each row — and keep the loop on your side. The no-code integrations do exactly that from Make.com, n8n and plain HTTP.

In this section#

• Creating an automation — the examples, the New automation dialog, the four ways to start, and connecting a source.
• The dataset — the table: editing, column types, importing rows, the Status and Actions columns, previewing a row.
• Templates and the Workflow tab — linking a template, the mapping, filters and destinations.
• What makes a row invalid — the pre-flight check and every reason a row is blocked.
• Rendering videos — the Render videos dialog, the cost, the queue, and what happens to the videos.
• Syncing a connected source — schedules, Sync now, orphaned rows, and when the origin changes.