Simple iOS Shortcuts to Manage Bots From Your Phone

At Option Alpha, we love hearing stories and posts about creative and innovative ways to trade. Recently, one of our community members, Andy, shared a brilliant way to streamline bot management directly from your iPhone, and it could be a game-changer for you. After introducing webhooks at Option Alpha, he took his setup to the next level by integrating iOS Shortcuts with webhooks.

What may seem like a small tweak turned out to be a massive quality-of-life (QOL) improvement for him: “This is a small one, but it was a huge QOL upgrade for me,” he said. I personally never thought about using webhooks like this, and love how the idea is simple yet powerful.

Adding iOS Shortcuts to Manage Bots

Using iOS Shortcuts, you can create buttons on your phone’s home screen to trigger specific actions among any (or all) your bots. For example, Andy set up a deadman’s switch that tags each bot to "disable scanning" at the end of the week. Instead of logging in and manually updating each bot at the end of every week, he simply taps a button on his phone and confirms the action once for all bots.

Setting this up is incredibly easy:

Copy your private webhook URL from your bot/automation settings. Remember, you can reuse the same webhook trigger for multiple bots.

Open iOS Shortcuts app and create a new action. Search for ‘Get contents of URL’.
Paste your webhook URL into the iOS Shortcuts app.

In the example above, I replicated the same deadman’s switch as Andy's but also added my own shortcut for my 0DTE bot. Sometimes, when trading 0DTE, I prefer to see how the market opens and trades to make sure I’m avoiding huge crash days such as the one we saw last week after the Japanese Yen carry trade started to unwind. With this new shortcut for “Hunt for 0DTE Trades,” my bots can wait for my ‘signal’ each day before they begin scanning for me.

Quick Tip: If you prefer an extra layer of security, you can insert a confirmation step with the "Choose from menu" action. This way, you can confirm the action before it executes.

Why I Love iOS Shortcuts for Bots

I’ll be honest, I didn’t have or use any iOS shortcuts before reading this post by Andy and it’s because I didn’t have a pressing need for them. But now leveraging webhooks and iOS Shortcuts, I’m building myself another level of control without the hassle of logging into my account when I’m out of the office or on the road. This saves time and allows me to respond more quickly to changing market conditions.

Plus, I added a group to my phone called “Option Alpha” that has all my bot controls in it.

Consider taking this extra step to incorporate iOS shortcuts if you're already using webhooks to manage your trading bots. It's a simple yet effective way to keep your trading strategy agile and efficient, all from the convenience of your phone. If you’re new to using webhooks, check out our detailed guide on webhooks to get started and join the conversation with other traders who are already reaping the benefits of this integration.

Incorporating this small yet impactful tweak could significantly enhance your trading experience, just like it did for Andy. Why not try it and see how fun it is to manage bots from your phone?

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