# Actions

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

### What is an action? <a href="#what-is-an-action" id="what-is-an-action"></a>

An action is a button that triggers server-side logic through an API call. Without a single line of code, Forest Admin 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 Admin, all the available actions can fall into 2 categories.

#### Native actions

Those actions come out-of-the-box. Here is what the most common ones look like in the interface:

* **Create**: create a new record in a given collection **(1)**
* **Duplicate**: create a new record from an existing one **(2)**
* **Update**: edit a record's data **(3)**
* **Delete**: remove a record **(4)**

![](/files/-Lih5kcvWqcC6pZ_emmz)

{% hint style="info" %}
Some actions are only available when 1+ record(s) are selected. This depends on [their type](#triggering-different-types-of-actions).
{% endhint %}

![](/files/-Lih65f_tYIH0lQkqHGq)

{% hint style="warning" %}
Native actions' **permissions** can be configured in the project settings, in the [Roles tab](/user-guide/project-settings/teams-and-users/manage-roles.md#collection-permissions-1).
{% endhint %}

#### 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](/user-guide/collections/actions/create-and-manage-smart-actions.md#what-is-a-smart-action).

{% hint style="info" %}
Smart Actions can be triggered from the *Actions* button in the List View, from the Details View, or directly from a [Summary View](/user-guide/getting-started/master-your-ui/build-a-summary-view.md#acting-on-your-data) or a Workspace.
{% endhint %}

### 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 select one or several records
* **Single** actions: the action is only available for one selected record at a time
* **Global** actions: the action is always available in the Table View without having to select one or several records

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


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