The Automation Management Tool

Modified on Mon, Sep 23 at 1:13 PM

The Automations tool allows admins with the Content Management role to manage existing automations and create new ones at the portal level.

This article defines what automations are, how they are created, and the various component types that are available for use in an automation. Once an automation is published, it is available for use in the portal. For details on assigning a manual automation to a member, see this article.

What are Automations?

An automation is a predetermined set of tasks, emails, SMS messages, to-do's, goals, and setting of contact leads that is put in motion by a triggering event. The automations tool allows admins to create a series of timed tasks and/or messages that will fire at a triggering event.

To get to the Automations tool:

Go to the Settings section of the admin website
Enter the Portal Management module
Choose the portal you want to manage
Select the “Automations” option from the menu on the left of the page beneath the CONTENT section

Here you can view all automations that currently exist in the portal.

You can choose to edit, view, copy, or delete an automation.
This is the title of the automation.
These are the keywords associated with the automation which can be used to look up batches of automations categorically, by keyword.
This is either custom or template (a template automation appears in the automation catalog after you hit the CREATE button.)
This is the most recent date of the publishing of the automation.
This is the status of the automation (either draft or published).

You can create a new automation by clicking the CREATE button above the table...

Now you can choose from the automation template catalog:

Start from scratch with the blank automation template
Choose any of the other templates to start with pre-filled start and stop triggers and default messaging

If you want to enable a non-blank automation template:

To create a new automation using the blank template, continue reading...

Creating a New Automation

The first step to creating an automation is to edit the description settings. Do this by clicking on the gear icon in the upper-left of the page. Once clicked, the title and description fields are accessible on the right.
The next step to creating an automation is to set the trigger, which is the event that will put the automation into motion. To set the trigger, click on the “Start of Automation” tile in the editing field; this opens the General Settings editor. After entering a title for the automation, choose the Start Trigger option you want from the drop-down.

Types of Automation Triggers

Manual—fires when a coach goes to the member admin and assigns it to a member. Once a manual trigger is assigned to a member, the flow is fired and will run through its path.

All other trigger types are Event Triggers, meaning that the automations are triggered automatically whenever the assigned event occurs.

Booking Event—fires when a booking status changes:

Scheduled event fires when a booking is created in the YouCanBook.me system. This typically happens when a member schedules a session with a coach through a flow.
Rescheduled event fires when a previously scheduled booking is rescheduled.
Completed event fires when a booking session is marked as complete by the coach in the coach task system.
Cancelled fires when a booking is cancelled by the coach or the member in the YouCanBook.me system.
Missed fires when a booking status is set to missed. Missed events are marked manually in the coach task system.
Reminder fires when a scheduled booking is approaching (this fires at a predetermined amount of time before the appointment is set to take place, typically 15 minutes before).

When a booking event is set as the trigger, the booking profile ID must be entered into the field beneath the selection of the specific booking type.

Course Event—fires when a member either starts or completes a course or a session within a course. This automation can be set to "all courses" or a specific course.

Flow Event—fires when a member either starts or completes a flow. After selecting this as the trigger event, the specific flow can be chosen from any that are enabled in the portal.

Member Event—fires when a new member record is created (Member Added) or when a member completes registration for their portal (Member Registered).

Message Event—fires when the status of a message changes:

New incoming message is received fires when a message status is set to pending, meaning an incoming message has been received from a member.
Incoming message is replied to fires when a member’s message has been replied to by a coach.
Message task is marked as No Action Required fires when a message status is changed by a coach to “No Action Required.”

Task Event—fires when a general task associated with a member is created or when the status of a task has changed. General tasks that are not associated with a member do not fire automation flows.

Misc Event—fires when a triggered customized event occurs. In this case, the customized event occurs in the client's system which then communicates the triggered event to the ERx system.

Setting a Stop Trigger

The stop trigger is useful for ongoing automations (usually multi-day) where you want to abort the remainder of an automation if a certain condition is met. For example, if you are creating a message campaign to get a member to start a course, you may set up messages that occur weekly for 4 weeks. However, if the member starts the course on the second week, you will want the automations to stop as the goal has been met.

Adding Components to an Automation

The components make up the substance of the automation. Access the components menu on the left (you can expand and condense by clicking the arrow):

Member components include:

Send Email—When the email component is reached in an automation, an email will be sent to the member; emails can be set to be sent at any point in the automation. The email component allows you to compose an email in the editor using any template available in the portal. Emails can also include resources which, when selected, allow you to choose from any enabled content in the portal library. Email components will show an error state until they have the necessary content.
Send SMS—When the SMS component is reached in an automation flow, an SMS message will be sent to the member; SMS messages can be sent at any point in the automation. The SMS component allows you to compose an SMS message using any template available in the portal and any content that is enabled in the portal library. SMS components will show an error state until they have the necessary content.
Create Todo—When the to-do component is reached in the automation, it is automatically added to the member's to-do list. You can create a new to-do by selecting "General"; you can also choose from any enabled content in the portal's library or any enabled flow in the portal. After setting the to-do, select the due date for completion.
Assign Goal—When the goal component is reached in an automation, the selected goal is automatically added to the member's goal list. To set the goal, first choose whether the goal is a short- or long-term goal (typically, short-term goals are defined as those that are meant to be completed in the span of a week or two; long-term goals are defined as those that are meant to be completed in three months). You can choose a goal from the drop-down (all goals, sorted by term length, that exist in the portal will be listed. You can also type the goal into the text-space if it does not currently exist in the portal.
Set Member Homepage—After inserting this component, you can set the homepage that will be assigned to the member. You can choose the homepage from any of the page templates OR from any of the pages created for the portal.
Set Custom Field—This component enables you to choose a configured custom field that will automatically be populated in the member account when it is reached in the automation.

Coach related components include:

Create a Coach Task—When the task component is reached in an automation, it is added as a Coach task in the coach dashboard. Tasks include a summary, a type (currently only “General” is available), the due date, and a description. Tasks can be assigned to an individual coach or tasks can be left unassigned, in which case they will appear on the dashboard for all coaches connected to the account.

Set Member's Lead Coach—When this component is reached in an automation, the lead coach is assigned to the member.

Understanding the Chronology of the Automations

Part of creating an automation is setting the chronology of each task and message that is included in it. The chronology of an automation is marked by days, and the FIRST DAY is the day that the automation is triggered, called "At Start" (either manually or by the event occurring). When you click the "Add Day" option for the first time in the builder field, the "At Start" tile will appear.

Each time you click the "Add Day" option after the "At Start" tile has been added, you will set the day, time, and add the components you want to occur on that day. Note that you do not have to add components to the At-Start day. If, for example, you want the first action in the automation to be an email sent 2 days after the triggering event at 8 a.m., the automation would look like this:

For all other days in the automation, click the “Add Day” option. After the first day, you need to set the day and time when the components you add will be fired by clicking on the tile and filling in the day and time fields (these are auto-populated at 8:00 a.m. in the member’s time-zone).

Note that all components added to a day-grouping will be fired at the same time. You can add as many days to the automation as you'd like by continuing to select the “Add Day” option beneath each previously set tile and set the timing you want. Be aware that each new tile is scheduled from the Start Day so each successive tile should be further from the start day then the previous one.

An Example of a Simple Automation

In the automation flow above, you can see that:

an email is sent at the day the automation is triggered,
a to-do is set for 10 days after the automation is triggered, and
an SMS is sent 14 days after the automation is triggered.

Saving, Publishing, and Viewing Revisions

The options to save, publish, unpublish, and view previous iterations of the automation flow are in the top right corner above the editing field. Each option is defined as follows:

Saving creates a saved version of the automation that you can return to and edit in the future. When an automation is saved, it is not available for use in the portal.
Publishing enables the automation for use in the portal. Publish when an automation is complete and ready to be put into use. Published automations are considered active, meaning that when an event is triggered for a published automation, it will be fired.
Unpublishing disables the automation from use in the portal and turns it into a saved version from which you can edit.
Revision of the automation allows you to view and compare different saved versions of the flow. Every time an automation is saved as a draft or published, the version is assigned a revision number, starting at 1. This option allows you to view the history of the automation’s edited versions and restore individually.

Once the automation is published, it is available for use in the portal. For details on assigning a manual automation to a member, see this article.