Box Automate with Box Drive

👋 Hi ​@RichK, welcome to the Box Community!

There are two primary reasons why your Box Relay/Automate workflow triggers successfully via the Web interface but fails when files are uploaded via Box Drive:

1. Box Drive uploads do not trigger workflows (general limitation)

From the General Limitations When Using Box Drive documentation, “Uploading content in Box Drive does not trigger workflow actions.” This is a known system limitation where background file events initiated by the desktop client do not always register as standard web-based upload events in the workflow engine.

2. File de-duplication and “Copy” event recognition

Another common root cause is how Box Drive handles file uploads to optimize performance:

• Hash-value matching: In Box Drive, when a file with identical content (the same hash value/checksum) is uploaded, the server copies the previously uploaded file instead of performing a fresh re-upload to reduce system load.
• Trigger mismatch: Because the system treats this as a Copy operation rather than a New Upload event, a workflow configured to trigger only on “New Upload” will fail to start.

✅ Recommended solutions & workarounds

To resolve this issue and ensure your automation runs reliably across all platforms, consider the following adjustments:

1. Modify the workflow triggers: Edit your workflow in the Box Relay/Automate builder to trigger on both “New Upload” and “Copy” (and optionally “Move”) events. This ensures that even if Box Drive optimizes the upload by treating it as a copy, the workflow will still initiate.
    
2. Use unique content: If you are testing with the same file repeatedly, make a minor change to the file’s content (not just the filename) before uploading to force a unique hash value, which prevents Box from optimizing it as a copy operation.
    
3. Upload via Web App: For critical automations that rely strictly on clean “New Upload” triggers, users should upload files directly through the Box Web Application.

Hope this helps! Please feel free to reach out if you have any other questions.

Jey -- thank you so much! This is just what I needed. I’ll try suggestion 1 first. Best!

Hi ​@RichK ! Glad to hear it - did this end up working for you? Or anything else we can do to help? Thanks again!

Hi Kelsey -- thanks so much. I was working on a very simple automation where when a file lands in folder A, it gets copied to folder B. I created an automation where an upload to A triggers a copy to B. I then created another where “copied into” A triggers a copy to B. These two automations mean that whether a file is uploaded to A via the web, or copied to A via Box Drive, the automation works and a copy is made into B. But I had do these as two separate automations. Is there a way to combine the trigger on Upload OR copy so I just have one automation instead of two?

Hi ​@RichK, currently, Box Relay workflows are limited to one trigger per workflow, meaning distinct file events like “New Upload” and “Copied Into” cannot be combined into a single “OR” trigger.

So what you’ve built (i.e., two separate automations covering both the “Upload” and “Copied Into” triggers) is actually the correct and recommended approach in Box Relay. You’re not missing a hidden setting; this is a known architectural constraint.

However, we are planning to introduce multi-trigger workflows in Q3/Q4. 🙌 -- thanks to​@Scott Sugimoto at Box for helping drive this forward.

Additionally, you may want to explore our next-generation workflow platform, Box Automate, which offers advanced branching logic and parallel paths that can help consolidate complex automation requirements. You can discuss Box Automate’s capabilities with your Box Admin or Account Team (​@KatieZBox & ​@Kelsey Hawthorne Box) to see if the new builder supports your use case more elegantly.

📌 For more on the differences between Relay and Automate, check out:
👉 Differences Between Box Automate and Box Relay

thanks, Jey!