A workflow is a follow-up process you build once, like welcoming a first-time guest, onboarding a new volunteer, or walking someone through membership. Every person who enters a workflow gets their own card that moves step by step until they're done, so follow-up doesn't depend on anyone remembering.
And now you can have a workflow step perform an action automatically, like send an email, set a field, or make a follow-up task. After the action runs, it’s recorded in the card history, the step is completed, and the card advances to the next step, without you having to do anything!
How it works
When you edit a workflow step, in the Action section, you can choose “Perform an action automatically” and pick the action you want.
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What to expect on the workflow page
Auto-action steps are marked with a lightning bolt icon, so you can spot them at a glance.
When a card arrives at that step (and isn’t skipped), you’ll see a badge for a few seconds while it is performing the action. Once the action runs, the step is automatically completed, and the card moves to the next step.
Since cards usually pass through these steps quickly, it’s normal for the step to be empty most of the time.
Changing a step’s settings will not affect any cards currently in the step. If you do want an action applied to all cards currently in a step, you can bulk update them.
If anything goes wrong with an action, like maybe it’s trying to send an email template that has since been deleted, the card will stay in the step and get assigned to the backup assignee chosen in the step settings. Once you’ve sorted out the problem, you can bulk update those cards to run the action.
Put it all together
Automatic actions work especially well alongside the other workflow features we’ve recently added, and it’s almost like we planned these to work together all along! 😉
Skip some cards. If your automatic action shouldn’t happen for everyone, configure a skip condition. Let’s say the first step on your membership workflow is sending people an email with info to sign up for your membership class. Make sure the step skips people who have already registered, and then have it email everyone else automatically.
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Snooze overnight. But maybe you don’t ever want that automatic email to send in the middle of the night. Enable Auto snooze and set it to snooze cards that come in after hours until morning.
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Incoming automations to complete steps. Now that you’ve sent that email to sign up for your membership class, step 2 is just waiting for them to actually register. Go to the registration and set up an automation to complete this workflow step when people register and they’ll move on automatically.
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Chain chain chain
Steps are building blocks. Need two actions? Create two steps: one that sets a custom field, another that adds the person to a group. Mix in skip conditions, auto snooze, and incoming automations, and a workflow starts handling the predictable parts on its own, leaving your team free for the parts that need a person.
💙 Team People