February 2026 Product Club | Universal Webhook Listener

Welcome to the February Product Club Recap! This month, the Automation Anywhere community gathered for a look at Universal Webhook Listener (UWL) and how it unlocks real-time, event-driven automation far beyond the limits of pre-built integrations. The session featured Vineet Pujari (Product Management) and Max Cassidy (Senior Developer Evangelist), who broke down the “why,” the “how,” and the real-world patterns teams can use to move from polling-based automations to instant, contextual execution.

SPEAKERS

Vineet Pujari, Principal Product Manager
Max Cassidy, Senior Developer Evangelist

TOPIC

In this session, we explored Universal Webhook Listener and web triggers as the fastest way to make automations fire the moment something happens in your apps. Vineet framed the core idea simply: zero polling, zero waiting. Instead of “checking” for updates on a schedule, web triggers let external systems push events directly into Automation Anywhere’s Control Room in real time.

The key takeaway: UWL acts as a catch-all listener for webhook-enabled apps, expanding event automation beyond the out-of-box packages (like ServiceNow, Outlook, Jira, GitHub, and more). If an application can emit a webhook event, UWL can receive it, pass the payload as context, and kick off an automation immediately.

The team also kicked off the first “use case of the quarter”: an employee onboarding workflow that will evolve across upcoming Product Club sessions as more platform capabilities are layered in.

UNIVERSAL WEBHOOK LISTENER: THE ENHANCEMENT

Universal Webhook Listener is designed to help teams move from scheduled “polling” automation to truly event-driven workflows that respond in seconds.

Key Benefits

• Real-time response (no polling): Automations trigger when events happen, not when a schedule checks.

• Works with virtually any webhook-enabled SaaS: A “catch-all” for systems without native trigger packages.

• Context-rich execution: Event payloads are passed into the automation so the bot runs with full context.

• Lower runtime overhead: The listening happens without consuming a bot runner; execution can be routed to devices, pools, or API Tasks.

DEMO HIGHLIGHTS

Max demoed a practical “doorbell” scenario: new employee added → webhook fires → automation runs.

1) Webhooks explained with the best analogy of the day

A webhook is like a doorbell:

• Polling is walking to your door every minute to see if someone’s there.

• Webhooks are waiting until someone rings the bell.

2) Control Room setup: listener first, then trigger

Max showed that creating a listener is straightforward:

• Go to Manage → Event Triggers → Listeners

• Click Create Listener

• Name it, describe it, and Control Room generates a listener URL

• Paste that URL into the source system (or middleware) that will send webhook events

3) Security options built into the trigger

Even in a simple demo with no auth, the session highlighted controls teams can use in production:

• Authentication headers (API keys, bearer tokens, secret headers)

• Signature schemes that help validate payload integrity and detect tampering

4) Live onboarding workflow: event → run

Max ran the automation in a “listening” state, then added an employee in the source app:

• Event queued and delivered

• Bot started running automatically

• Use case implications: onboarding tasks like account provisioning, equipment requests, credential setup, document collection, and notifications can all be triggered instantly.

EVENT-DRIVEN VS SCHEDULED: WHAT CHANGES?

A recurring theme in Q&A was the difference between scheduled automations and event-driven triggers.

Scheduling: outbound “check-ins” from Control Room on a time interval
UWL: inbound “push” events delivered to Control Room instantly

Vineet extended the door analogy:

• Scheduling “peeps through the keyhole”

• Webhooks “ring the doorbell”

SCALING, ROUTING, AND RUNNER STRATEGY

One of the most practical clarifications: UWL listening doesn’t consume a runner, but when it’s time to execute, you control where it runs:

• Single device

• Pool of runners

• API Task (cloud execution)

And yes: if a pool has no available device, the triggered bot can queue.

For high-volume bursts, Vineet offered a helpful best practice:

• If events come in massively at the same time, consider batch processing instead of one-trigger-per-record (“keep the door open at 10am instead of opening it for each doorbell ring”).

GOVERNANCE AND AUDITING

Yes, there’s visibility:

• Audit logs exist for received requests

• Logs can also reflect whether an event triggered a bot/API task deployment

• Event payload data can be captured in the audit trail (as described in-session)

If delivery succeeds but execution fails (no runner, deployment issue, etc.), that failure is logged in Control Room with the reason.

LICENSING: THE “FREEMIUM” MODEL EXPLAINED

This came up multiple times, so here’s the clean recap:

• Cloud users can test UWL/web triggers while building in the Bot Editor without additional licensing (to validate value and behavior).

• Production setup (checking in, then creating an event trigger record in the Event Triggers page for operational use) is where Enterprise licensing applies (one tier above the base platform license), per Vineet’s explanation.

CONFIGURATION FAQ: “HOW DOES IT LISTEN TO MY APP?”

This was a great question from attendees: a listener URL is generated randomly, so how does it “know” the application?

It doesn’t auto-discover the app. Instead:

• You register the listener URL in the source application (or middleware) as the webhook target.

• The source system decides what events to send and where, and UWL is the endpoint that receives them.

The team also referenced an Automation Anywhere University (AAU) course that walks through setup (including a Typeform example).

SNEAK PEEK: WHAT’S COMING

• On-prem availability: planned, but “not in the near future,” with a tentative target of within ~1 year 

• More signature/encryption options: at the time of the session, SHA256 was mentioned as currently available, with additional algorithms expected soon.

SESSION Q&A (HIGHLIGHTS)

Question: Will UWL be available on-prem?
Answer: Planned, but not near-term; tentatively within the next year.

Question: Does UWL consume a runner? Can I route events to a runner pool?
Answer: Listening doesn’t use a runner. Execution can target a device, a pool, or an API Task.

Question: Is there a limit on how many listeners I can create?
Answer: No stated platform limit; practical limits depend on source systems and event volume.

Question: Is there an audit log of received requests and deployments?
Answer: Yes. Requests, payload logging, and deployment outcomes are captured in Control Room audit logs.

Question: What happens if there’s an issue deploying the automation?
Answer: The source system isn’t sent a response; Control Room logs failures and reasons.

Question: Can one bot have multiple triggers?
Answer: Yes, but best practice is often one trigger per automation to keep designs clean and modular.

Question: How do I migrate from dev to prod?
Answer: Migrate the bot, then recreate the listener in prod and reselect it in the bot configuration.

Question: How does this work with Monday.com verification / secret tokens?
Answer: Use authentication headers (secret token/API key) and signature validation where applicable; the team noted this is a frequent question and plans to test Monday.com specifically.

Session Resources

• Web trigger bundle documentation
• Universal web trigger documentation
• Universal Web Trigger Training in University

We look forward to seeing you at the next Product Club! In the meantime, if you’re ready to experiment, one of the fastest “try it today” paths mentioned was Typeform/Jotform → paste listener URL → trigger automation on form submission to validate end-to-end behavior quickly.

Let us know below: Where do you see Universal Listener fitting first in your workflows?