Automations — Help center

An automation is a simple rule: when something happens, then do one thing. Use it to create a follow-up task for every new lead, tag customers after their first order, give unowned leads an owner, or send a thank-you email when a quote is accepted. For a series of steps with waits and checks, use Follow-ups instead.

Before you start

Automations are available when your plan includes Automations. Your plan also sets how many rules you can have (Automation rules), and a company can have at most 20 rules in any case.
Only owners and administrators can see, create, pause, resume and remove rules. Members and viewers don't see the page.
The Send an email action also needs Email campaigns in your plan. Without it, saving such a rule fails with "This needs email campaigns in your plan."

To open the page, go to Contacts, open Tools and choose Automations.

Triggers and actions

Each rule has one trigger (When) and one action (Then).

When	It happens
A new lead arrives	A new contact is created by a website form, by a first message on a connected channel, or by a new store customer. Contacts your team adds by hand or imports don't count.
A store order is confirmed	A store order from a connected store reaches a sale status (paid, processing, completed or delivered) for the first time.
A quote is accepted	A quote is marked as accepted, by your team or by the customer on the quote page.
A deal is won	A deal is marked as won.

Then	What it does
Create a task	Creates a task on the contact, due after the number of days you set (0 means today). It goes to the person you choose, or to the contact's owner when you leave The contact owner. That person is notified.
Add a tag	Adds the tag to the contact. The tag is created if it doesn't exist yet.
Assign an owner	Makes the chosen person the contact's owner, but only when the contact has no owner yet. It never replaces an existing owner.
Send an email	Sends the email you write to the contact, once per contact for this rule.

Create a rule

Go to Contacts, then Tools, then Automations.
Under Create automation, type a Name (up to 120 characters) that says what the rule does.
In When, choose the trigger.
In Then, choose the action.
Fill only the fields for that action:
- Create a task: Task title (up to 200 characters), Due after days (0 to 365) and Person.
- Add a tag: Tag (up to 60 characters).
- Assign an owner: Person. It is required for this action.
- Send an email: under Email, fill Subject (up to 150 characters), Message (plain text, up to 5,000 characters), Reply address and Your postal address (5 to 200 characters, shown at the bottom of the email). Write {name} in the message where the customer's name should appear.
To limit the rule to larger orders, quotes or deals, fill Only from this amount and choose a Currency. Both are needed together.
Select Create automation. The rule is active straight away.

Pause, resume or remove a rule

Each rule in the list shows its trigger, its action and how many times it ran ("Ran 3 times"). Select Pause to stop it, and Resume to start it again. Events that happen while a rule is paused are not picked up later.

Select Remove to take a rule off the list for good. A removed rule never runs again, no longer counts towards your limit, and can't be turned back on. Emails it had queued are not sent. A paused rule still counts towards your limit, and holds its queued emails until you resume it.

Rules can't be edited. To change one, remove it and create a new rule.

Try an email on yourself

Beside each rule that sends an email, and each email step of a sequence, Send me a test sends that email once to your own address, so you see it as a customer will.

Good to know

Once per event. A rule runs once for each lead, order, quote or deal, even if the store or channel sends the same event twice.
One email per person. A rule's email reaches each contact only once, however many times the rule runs for them.
Emails follow the campaign rules. They skip contacts who have no email address, who opted out of marketing, or whose data was erased. They count towards your monthly campaign emails, and each email has an unsubscribe link. See Email campaigns.
Amount conditions. A rule with a minimum amount runs only when the event has an amount in the same currency, at or above the minimum. A new lead arrives has no amount, so a rule with a minimum never runs for it.
Imports don't trigger rules. Orders and contacts imported from your history never start a rule, so connecting a store doesn't create thousands of tasks.
No chains. What a rule does never triggers another rule, so rules can't loop.
Archived contacts are skipped.
A broken rule doesn't block your work. If an action fails, the order, message or deal that triggered it is still saved, and the other rules still run.
People who left. If the chosen person is no longer an active member, a task goes to the contact's owner instead, and Assign an owner does nothing.
The same events also start Follow-ups and can be sent to your own systems with outgoing webhooks.
Creating a rule and pausing, resuming or removing it are recorded in the audit log as "Changed an automation". See Data and privacy.

Troubleshooting

I can't find Automations under Tools. Your plan doesn't include it, or you are not an owner or administrator.

"The limit has been reached." You have 20 rules, or as many as your plan allows. Paused rules count too, removed ones don't. Remove a rule you no longer need.

A task rule created a task with nobody on it. The rule was set to The contact owner and the contact had no owner. Choose a fixed Person, or add an Assign an owner rule.

The email rule doesn't send. Check that the contact has an email address and didn't opt out of marketing, and that your monthly email allowance isn't used up. Emails wait in line while the allowance is used up and go out when there is room again.