Skip to content
Petal

All help pages

Set up an automation

1. What an automation is

An automation is a rule: when something happens (a deal is created, changes stage, is won or lost; an activity is created or completed; a person or organization is added or changed; a lead comes in), it does one or more steps. It runs as its owner, with only their permissions, every time, with nobody watching. Owners and admins write automations.

2. Write one by describing it

  1. Press Commands and choose Describe how you sell.
  2. Say what you want in your own words, for example "when a deal is won, plan a call with the contact a week later".
  3. The assistant drafts the rule and shows it with what it would have done on past changes. Press Approve to save it.

Saving does not switch it on.

3. Check it, then switch it on

Open the account menu, choose Administration, then Automations. Owners and admins see this page. Each automation is a card: its name, with whether it is On, Off or Not switched on yet, then When (what starts it), Then (its steps, each as a plain sentence naming the stage or person it acts on), Owner and Last run.

  1. Press Try on past changes to see where it would have run over recent days. This changes nothing.
  2. Press Switch on, read what it will do, and press Switch it on.

Only its owner can switch it on, because it runs as them. If anyone else edits it, it switches off until the owner checks it again.

4. See what it did

  • Press What it did on an automation for its runs, newest first.
  • If a run failed and none of its steps took effect, its owner sees Retry beside it. It runs the automation again on the same record, as the owner, and the new attempt appears under the failed run, which keeps its reason. A run can be retried three times, within 30 days. Retry disappears if the automation was edited, switched off or handed to someone else since the run, because the run belongs to the version that failed.
  • What your automations did shows what each rule did week by week. It also says when a rule was on all week and never ran.

5. Switch off, hand over, stop

  • Any owner or admin can press Switch off.
  • Give to someone else hands it to another owner or admin. It arrives switched off, for the new owner to check and switch on.
  • An automation that runs too many times in a short while is paused, and its owner can check it and switch it on again.

6. The assistant's automatic actions

Separately from automations, you can let the assistant make kinds of suggested change for you without asking, from your first day. Open Settings from the account menu, then Your automatic actions. Every kind the assistant can suggest is listed, whether or not it has suggested it yet: press Make this automatic beside one, or Make every kind automatic to turn on every kind in that section at once. After you approve a kind unchanged twice, the assistant also suggests it beside Approve. Changes to amounts, dates and names wait for you unless you turn them on here, one at a time. Some kinds always wait, such as settings changes that can't be undone, and the list says why (what the assistant changes automatically). Press Turn off to stop at any time. Undoing a change it made also turns that kind off.

7. Rules that run on a date, and waits

An automation can also run on a date instead of a change: a number of days before or after a date on a record, or on the day itself. It reads as its day, for example "7 days before the deal's close date" or "On the activity's due date", in the list and when you switch it on.

A step can be a wait: a number of days or hours, or until the rule's conditions hold, for at most a number of days. It reads as its step, for example "Wait 2 days". A wait is never the last step, two waits never come one after the other, and all of a rule's waits add up to at most 90 days.

For a rule that runs on a date, Try on past changes lists the records whose day fell in the period, each with its date, and apart from them the records whose day comes in the next 14 days, marked Coming up. Waits are not played out in this preview.

Switching a rule with waits off, or off and on again, cancels the waits already under way.

8. Edit or delete an automation

Owners and admins see Edit and Delete on each automation.

  1. Press Edit to change any part of it in the same form as New automation, then press Save. Before you save, it says what saving will do. If you are not its owner and it is on, saving switches it off and tells its owner, who has to check it and switch it on again. If you are its owner, saving makes a new version that does not run until you switch it on again.
  2. A part written in the setup conversation that the form cannot show, such as a title taken from the deal's own name, is shown as it is and kept exactly as it is when you save. To change it, press Change what it does: this opens the setup conversation with the automation's name filled in, not sent. Describe the change; it comes back for you to approve, with what it would have done.
  3. Press Delete, then Delete it. It stops at once and leaves the list. What it already did, and the record of its runs, stay. If someone else owns it, they are not asked first.

9. Write an automation yourself

Owners and admins can write an automation on its page, without the setup conversation.

  1. Open the account menu, choose Administration, then Automations, and press New automation.
  2. Give it a Name, and if you like say What it is for.
  3. Under When, choose the Record (a deal, an activity, a person, an organization or a lead) and What happens to it, or Reaches a date to run a number of days before, on or after one of its dates.
  4. Under Only if, press Add a condition for each thing that must be true, for example Currency is USD. With no conditions it runs every time.
  5. Under Then, choose what each step does: Create an activity (its type, its title, how many days after the run it is due, from 0 to 365, and who does it); Change the deal (its title, its expected close date a number of days after the run, or its chance of winning), Change the person (job title or country) or Change the organization (its name); Move the deal to a stage; Log a call, meeting or note, offered only when the rule runs as a record is created; Save an email draft (a subject and message, with no recipient: nothing is sent until you add who it goes to and send it yourself); or Wait a number of days. A rule on a lead can create an activity on the lead, and wait. Add a step adds another; Up and Down change the order. A wait is never the last step.
  6. Press Save automation. If something is missing, it lists what, and nothing is saved.

Saving does not switch it on. It appears in the list as Not switched on yet; press Try on past changes to see what it would have done, then Switch on.