Automations

Admins only.

An automation does things for you when something happens in the CRM, or when you start it yourself: sending an email, adding a tag, creating a task and more, with filters and waits in between.

How automations work

Every automation has three parts:

1. A trigger: what starts it, such as a new contact or a form submission.
2. Filters (optional): which contacts carry on, such as only those with a certain tag.
3. Actions: what it does, such as sending an email.

Create an automation

1. Go to Automations → Workflow Automations and click + Create Automation.
2. Give it a name, and a description if you like.
3. Click the trigger and choose what starts it.
4. Add actions, filters and waits with the buttons at the bottom, or the + on the line between two steps.
5. Click any step to set it up in the panel beside it.
6. Save, then activate it when you are ready.

How many automations you can have depends on your plan.

Triggers

• Contact Created and Contact Updated
• Deal Created, Deal Stage Changed, Deal Won and Deal Lost
• Form Submitted: one form, or any form
• Tag Added and Tag Removed
• Manual Run: you choose who it runs for, a marketing list or everyone with a tag, and click Run Now

Actions

• Send Email: sends one of your email templates to the contact, with your email footer and an unsubscribe link
• Create Task and Create Activity (a note, call, email or meeting)
• Update Contact and Update Deal: change a field
• Add Tag and Remove Tag
• Add to List and Remove from List
• Change Deal Stage
• Create Notification: a notification in the CRM for the account’s admins
• Wait / Delay: a pause of minutes, hours or days before the next step

Filters

Filters decide which contacts carry on. Check a contact’s email, name, company, phone, lead quality or source, a deal’s value, status or stage, whether the contact Has Tag or Does Not Have Tag, and whether they are In List or Not In List.

Where a filter sits matters:

• Before the first action: contacts that do not match never start.
• Between actions: contacts that do not match stop there, and the actions before it have already run.

So everyone can get a first email while only contacts with a certain tag go on to the second and third.

Waits

Put a wait between actions to space them out: send a welcome email, wait two days, then send a follow-up. Waits run in the background, so nobody needs to keep the CRM open.

Manual runs

For a sequence you start yourself, such as a series of marketing emails:

1. Set the trigger to Manual Run.
2. Choose who it is for: a marketing list, or everyone with a tag.
3. Build the steps, for example Send Email, wait two days, Send Email, wait two days, Send Email.
4. Activate the automation.
5. Click Run Now. It runs in the background for everyone in the audience.

History

In the automations list, the history icon (View execution history) beside an automation shows each contact it ran for, whether each run succeeded or failed, and a log of every action.

Activate and deactivate

An automation only runs once it is active. Activate or deactivate it from the list or the builder. Activating checks that the trigger and every action are fully set up, and tells you if anything is missing. Deactivating stops it without deleting it.