Automations

Automations (under Automations in the sidebar) do the repetitive follow-through for you: the welcome sequence for new subscribers, the thank-you after a gift, the reminder before a shift. The list shows each automation as a one-line recipe (the trigger and its steps) with how many times it ran in the last 30 days and how the last run went. For one update that goes to everyone at a time you pick, use a newsletter instead; automations are for per-person journeys.

Start from a recipe

New automation offers four ready-made recipes with starter copy: Welcome new supporters (three emails over two weeks, ending early if they donate), Thank every donor (a same-day thank-you plus a personal-note task), Follow up after a shift (thanks, then the next invitation), and Re-engage quiet supporters (a gentle win-back where the second email only goes to people who didn’t open the first, and any engagement ends the sequence). A recipe lands as a draft; review every email, adjust the waits, then activate. Or start from scratch with a bare trigger.

Anatomy of an automation

• Trigger is the one event that lets someone in: Form submitted, Person created, Tag added, List joined, Donation recorded, a billing event, a volunteer shift status, an event registration (new contact or existing supporter, optionally limited to one event), a yard sign delivered (the requester enrolls the moment their sign reaches the house), a task breaching its SLA (the person the task is linked to enrolls; tasks that an automation created are not counted, and the same person is enrolled by this trigger at most once a week, so an automation that creates tasks cannot keep re-triggering itself), a new subscriber or unsubscriber, a supporter going quiet (no opens or clicks for a number of days you choose), a campaign date arriving (see below), or plain Manual enrollment. Everything after the trigger is the sequence.
• Campaign date arrives enrolls everyone on a list of your choosing a set number of days before a campaign’s end date — countdown reminders, election-day sends. It needs all three parts (the campaign, the days-before number, the list) before it can be activated, and it re-reads the campaign’s end date daily, so moving the date moves the send with no edit here. Each person on the list is enrolled once, on that day.
• Steps: what happens, in order. Add a Wait, Send email, Add tag, Add to list (a static list — smart lists compute their own members), Create task, or Notify team at any insertion point; waits and actions can be mixed in any order. A contact an automation adds to a static list also fires any List joined automations watching that list.
• Email conditions: from the second email on, a Send email step can be gated on what the person did with the previous email in the sequence, for example Only if they didn’t open the previous email. Put a Wait before a conditioned email so people have time to engage; a skipped step shows as a neutral Skipped with the reason.
• End early when sets sequence goals on the right rail: end the sequence the moment they donate, open any email in it, or click any email in it. Someone who converts stops getting the rest of the asks.
• Only enroll if sets optional conditions on the right rail. With none, everyone who hits the trigger enrolls.
• Active / Paused: Active runs every time the trigger fires. Pausing stops new runs immediately; nothing queues while paused.

A good first automation

1. 1Open Automations and click New automationPick a recipe, or a trigger from the cards. That’s the event that enrolls people.
2. 2Build the sequenceUse the + between steps to add a wait, an email, a tag, a task, or a team notification. Drag a step by its handle to reorder it; steps run top to bottom.
3. 3Name it and set it ActiveThe name is how the list and the Activity log refer to it. Once it’s active it starts watching for the trigger.

Consent and sending limits

Every automation is either relationship mail or marketing mail, shown as Email type in the workflow settings. Relationship mail is a direct response to something the person did themselves — a form they submitted, a shift they signed up for, a gift they gave — so it can reach contacts who never subscribed to your newsletter. Marketing mail is promotional: it only goes to subscribed contacts (everyone else is skipped, with the reason shown on the run), and it cannot send until your organization’s mailing address is set under Workspace → Organization, the same anti-spam requirement newsletters have. Most triggers decide the type for you: the person’s own actions are relationship (that includes an event they registered for and a yard sign they asked for), and Supporter goes quiet is always marketing — reaching out because someone stopped engaging is re-solicitation, not a reply. For triggers that could be either (Manual enrollment, Tag added, List joined, Person created, New subscriber, Campaign date arrives), the type defaults to marketing and you can switch it to relationship if the sequence truly answers the person’s own action.

Whatever the type, people who unsubscribed, bounced, or are marked do-not-contact are skipped automatically (the run shows a neutral Skipped with the reason, not a failure). There is one deliberate exception: an automation on the New unsubscriber trigger may send one — and only one — final email to the person who just unsubscribed, so a goodbye or win-back message can actually reach them. Anyone who hard-bounced, reported spam, or is marked do-not-contact is still never emailed, and a second unsubscribe later does not earn a second message. Every automation email carries an unsubscribe link and counts toward your plan’s monthly email allowance and sending limits; if your workspace’s sending is paused, the step waits and retries instead of losing the email. In Recent runs an email step shows Queued from the moment the sequence reaches it until it has actually been handed to our mail provider — usually seconds — and then becomes Success, Skipped or Failed. If someone unsubscribes, or your workspace’s sending is stopped, in that gap, the email is dropped and the run says Skipped rather than claiming it was sent.

Who’s enrolled

The Enrolled contacts tab shows who is moving through the sequence and where they are. Enrollment is per contact. Someone already in the sequence isn’t enrolled twice by the same trigger.