Why are all automations in one big list?

I do that too but when I need to find one in the mobile app I can’t, because the name is too long.
So, we all have found workarounds and it’s great to share them, but it is merely a testament that the feature requested here is really important to many.

1 Like

Even having the option to group by trigger entity/device would be useful.

I currently pre-pend them a ‘tag’ name to group them, but it could be better.

I have found that if you search the list the search term is persistent while working the list. It’s actually quite clever in that it behaves as though you are viewing a particular category until you clear the search. Of course, this only works if you have given your Automations (Scenes, Devices, Entities, etc) names that actually categorize them. For example, we have all timer Automations start with “ATM Timer:” so I can search for “timer” and the list stays filtered while I navigate back and forth until I clear the search. Very clever and useful.

You mean something like this?

2 Likes

I would like to be able to create my own categories and assign one or more categories to my automations. This way, I have full control over the way how my automations are categorized.

I’d also like to be able to filter those categories in the Automations list.

This same behavior would be nice for scripts and helpers too.

5 Likes

Another vote for this. Some way to intelligently organize automations into folders or something. I try to name my stuff as best I can, but along the way my naming conventions have changed, and it’s a lot of rework to go back and rename old automations and try to make sure I’ve identified them all. It would be really nice to just have a folder for “lights” another for “backend/system”, etc.

1 Like

I really like the concept of tags anywhere where things can be grouped

2 Likes

Yes. Tags. Tags everywhere. Allow multiple tags for items too!

I used to use packages to keep everything nicely organized but as I slowly switch over to UI based configuration I’ve lost that organizational ability.

2 Likes

Please please pleaseeeee

Was going to create another post but it fist in nicely with this. As well as the ui, it would be really useful for the scripts, automations ect. to be automatically stored in individual yaml files under a scripts/ automations folder, rather than one large file for each.

Its currently possible to do this manually but it then doesnt recognise them in the ui.

I am a big fan of YAML configuration and probably won’t switch to the UI method any time soon.

Still, by far the most important reason why I use YAML configuration is the packages configuration style. It should be a default for everyone and I wish to see this in the UI as well.

Not only automations, but scripts, helpers, template and MQTT entities, … everything can be nicely tied into logical groups of concern. I wouldn’t consider switching away from YAML atm

2 Likes

I have a similar issue. Automation screen is not very user friendly. Maybe if it consists of tiles like the Integration screen, would it be easier to follow?

Maybe an idea to add the possibility of color coding automations.

Can we get tags and expand that to all entities within Home Assistant? Not only can we sort automations by tags that way, but would also allow us to do the same with other entities within Home Assistant and given the right template functions / filters we could even use tags within automations.

For example, I often find myself to have two “classes” of lights in rooms. Ambient lights and main lights. Some automations I only want to affect the main lights in the room, but not the ambient lights. If we had the ability to tag entities with “main” or “ambient” and the ability to specify tags e.g. in targets, one could build automations that only affect entities that are tagged with a specific given tag.

So much potential!

I think that it would be very useful to group automations in tabs, in a similar way to Node Red. Tags are also nice but I feel like folders/tabs would provide a better overview

The ability of adding small icons to each automation will help much, with a hierarchy structure for automations something like windows file system.

Everything is organized alphabetically so I just use that with a naming convention so that everything remains grouped together. It’s a simple fix but requires a little planning. I’ve found that just about everything will fit within a couple categories. I then add the general area and a description. In the case of my Routines I add the time before the location so they sort in order of time. The end result is a naming convention that gives you an organized list.

Examples:

  • Announcement - Whole House - Garage Door Opened
  • Automation - Backyard - Lights On
  • Blueprint - Kitchen - Left Cabinet Inovelli Workaround
  • Notification - Security - Alarm On
  • Routine - 0715 - Mud Room - Leaving < notice the addition of time.
  • Scene Control - Master - Switch

This could probably be done automagically by using a bit of context from the automation fields.

This needs to be #1 priority, it makes the whole automation system pointless if it gets messy once you start using it heavily!

Yes we know there are mediocre workarounds like assigning automations to a room, but this is not helpful if you want to structure by other criteria!

Please add some kind of custom structure, labeling, whatever…!!

I just added the same topic to WTH,

I would like to have a categorized by a rooms

Totally agree! An object should have multiple tags! To be sorted, searchable, … even to be dynamically referenced by its tags from automations, scripts, etc.

1 Like