Build a workflow

Lauren Lentini

April 12, 2019 18:20

After you’ve composed your workflow messages, you can create the workflow to map out how to send them. Navigate to Workflows in the comms menu.

workflows in comms menu.png

Click on the Create Workflow button to start a new workflow. Or, you can clone an existing workflow by opening the workflow and clicking the clone icon in the bottom-right menu. create workflow window.png

Choose type of workflow

Choose between a Contact Workflow and a Form Workflow.

A Contact Workflow: all communication can be pushed to those with existing constituent profiles or who have been added to the workflow, either manually or automatically / dynamically.
A Form Workflow: a person is added to a Form workflow when they complete a form.

Name

Give your workflow a name. Use the Save button in the bottom-right corner to save your progress as you work. Unsaved changes will be labeled with an orange caution icon.

Goal

Use the edit pencil icon next to Goal to update your goal and define an endpoint for your subscribers, if desired. A goal is completed when a subscriber is moved to a new group. Select one or more groups the subscriber can be added to for goal completion.

Entry trigger

The workflow will automatically start off with an entry trigger, which determines how users will be subscribed to the workflow and whether they will be unsubscribed from other workflows.

If a subscriber is moving into this new workflow, you may not want them to continue in previous workflow(s) that you've set up. Select Remove subscriber from all other workflows to make the current workflow the only one they are subscribed to, or Remove subscriber from specific workflows to choose specific workflow(s) to take them out of.

The subscriber options for the workflow are static and automatic. Static means that you will manually add subscribers once the workflow has been activated. The Automatic option lets you select a group that will subscribe users to the workflow as members are added.

Steps

Click the gray + icon below the entry trigger box to add a step to your workflow.

Send Message

The first step will always be to send a message.

On the Send Message Options screen, choose whether to add a delay before this step is completed, as recommended, and then select from the dropdown which of your workflow messages you would like to send at this step.

Click the gray + icon that appears below the step you just created to create another step. This step can be either a message or a branch.

Branch

If you choose a branch, you can decide what to do next based on whether or not the subscriber has opened the previous message, or if they clicked on a link in that message. Use the dropdown menu to select Any link or a specific link that appears in the selected message.

Add a delay to this step to indicate when the system will check whether the action was taken. A YES and NO box will appear in your workflow, with two gray + icons so you can add steps for each scenario.

Best practice: Adding delays

Including delays on your workflow steps is a good way to ensure your users aren’t overwhelmed with back-to-back messages. You can put delays on both branches and messages to customize how frequently your workflow sends messages.

It’s highly recommended to put a delay on a branch to give users time to react to the previous message you have sent. The system will only check once whether the user has fulfilled the condition, at the end of the delay you’ve set on that step. If there is no delay, the system immediately sends all subscribers down the “no” path.

You may want to put a delay on a message in addition to the delay on the branch, so that users don’t receive another message too soon after opening the previous one. Keep in mind when you’re setting up your steps that the delay the user sees will be the sum total of the delay on the branch and the delay on the message send.

Continue adding branches and messages in this manner until you have completed all the steps you need.

The gray + icons are available above and below each step, in case you need to add a step in between existing steps. If you add a branch above existing steps, you will be given the option of whether to move the steps that follow to the yes or no path.

The workflow will scroll as you create more steps, or you can use the zoom buttons to adjust the size of the workflow.

Activate workflow

When you have finished building the workflow, select the Inactive toggle to change it to Active. You can choose to activate the workflow now, or schedule it for later. There is also a checkbox to Add users already meeting the trigger criteria to this workflow when activated. If you are using an automatic trigger, this checkbox will add the current group membership to the workflow. Otherwise, members added to the group after the workflow is activated will be included.

If you are using a static trigger, you'll be able to add subscribers once the workflow is activated. It is not possible to subscribe users to a scheduled workflow.