Building an Automation

Create an automation from Automations → New Automation, pick a starting point (a template or from scratch), and you land in the editor. The editor is one page with a Trigger card, optional exit goals, and the step list.

Name, description, and Active

The automation's name and description live in the page header — click the pen icon to edit them. The Active toggle sits in the header next to Test fire. Header changes save immediately; they don't wait for the Save button below.

Trigger

The trigger is the event that starts the automation. Pick one from the dropdown — each option explains when it fires. Triggers fall into a few groups:

• Giving & forms — donation submitted, registration submitted, ticket order submitted, form submitted. These can optionally be limited to one specific form.
• Activity & lifecycle — contact created, recurring donation started or failed, installment paid, revenue recorded, mail campaign sent, contact unsubscribed via campaign.
• Audience & segment — subscribed to or unsubscribed from a specific audience, contact enters a segment.
• Pipeline — a card is added to a kanban board, or a card is moved to a specific stage.
• Scheduled — runs on a schedule you define, enrolling contacts that match a segment on each run.
• Custom conversion — your own website or app reports a conversion event through the tracking API.

Some triggers require a binding before you can activate: audience triggers need an audience, segment and scheduled triggers need a contact segment, scheduled triggers also need a schedule, and the card-moved-to-stage trigger needs a board and stage.

Conditions

Conditions are optional filters on the triggering record. With no conditions, the automation fires for every event of the trigger's type. Add filters to narrow it — for example, donation amount at least 500, or contact has a certain tag. Conditions use the same filter builder as segments and reports.

Exit goals

An exit goal names an event that means a contact no longer needs this workflow. The moment a contact hits the goal, they are pulled out of the workflow immediately, even mid-wait, and skip all remaining steps.

An exit goal is one of exactly five events: donation submitted, registration submitted, ticket order submitted, form submitted, or a custom conversion. The hosted-form goals can optionally be limited to one specific form.

Use exit goals on drip-style workflows so people stop receiving asks once they've done the thing you asked for. A donation-appeal series with an exit goal of "donation submitted" never emails someone who already gave.

Exit goals affect contacts currently inside the workflow. They don't prevent a contact from entering the workflow again later if the trigger fires again.

Steps

Steps are the actions the automation performs, in order from top to bottom. Add steps with Add step, reorder them with the arrows, and delete with the trash icon. Each step card has an action picker — every action explains itself in the dropdown — followed by that action's settings. See Automation Steps for the full list.

Delays between steps

Any step can wait before the next step runs. Use either:

• A Wait step — a visible step whose only job is pausing the workflow for the minutes you set.
• Add delay after this step — a link on each regular step that reveals a delay field.

Both do the same thing: the next step fires after the delay elapses. A delay after the final step has no effect, because there is nothing left to run.

TIP

When a workflow has any delay, contacts inside it appear on the Enrollments tab while they wait.

Saving and activating

The Save button saves the trigger, conditions, goals, and steps. The Active toggle in the header controls whether the trigger is live, and it asks for confirmation both ways:

• Activating requires a complete definition — a trigger, at least one step, and any bindings the trigger needs. The toggle is disabled with an explanation until those are in place, and while you have unsaved changes.
• Deactivating stops new entries immediately. Contacts already waiting inside the workflow do not continue — their enrollments are cancelled when their next step comes due.