> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.forest.app/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Actions

Visualizing data is great, but at some point you're going to want to interact with it.

### What is an action?

An action is a button that triggers server-side logic through an API call. Without a single line of code, Forest natively supports all common actions required on an admin interface such as CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete), sort, search, data export, and more.

### Native actions vs Smart Actions

In Forest, all the available actions can fall into 2 categories.

#### Native actions

Those actions come out-of-the-box. We've covered them in details *from a route perspective* in [Routes](/legacy/ruby-agent/reference-guide/routes/overview). The most common ones are:

* **Create**: create a new record in a given collection
* **Duplicate**: create a new record from an existing one
* **Update**: edit a record's data
* **Delete**: remove a record

<Info>
  Some actions are only available when 1+ record(s) are selected. This depends on [their type](/legacy/ruby-agent/reference-guide/actions/overview#triggering-different-types-of-actions).
</Info>

<Warning>
  Native actions' **permissions** are set from the Roles section of the Project settings.
</Warning>

#### Smart Actions

Smart actions are your own business-related actions, built with your own code. You'll learn how to use them in the [following page](/legacy/ruby-agent/reference-guide/actions/create-and-manage-smart-actions/overview#what-is-a-smart-action).

<Info>
  Smart actions can be triggered from the *Actions* button or directly from a Summary view.
</Info>

### Triggering different types of actions

Triggering an action is very simple, but the behavior can differ according to the type of action.

There are 3 types of actions :

* **Bulk** actions: the action will be available when you click on one or several desired records
* **Single** actions: the action is only available for one selected record at a time
* **Global** actions: the action is always available and will be executed on all records

In the following pages, we'll cover everything you need to know about interacting with your data through actions.


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