Automations - build, change and pause them

Start an automation from a template or from scratch, change the ready-made messages other modules install, publish your changes, and pause one or all of them.

This article is being updated.

Automation is always on, whatever kind of business you run. An automation starts from a trigger, such as a new enquiry or a date coming up, and runs its steps for each record it starts for.

By default, the Owner and Managers can open Automation and make changes. Someone else can be given access with a permission override in Settings → Users. See Roles and permissions. Someone whose role can see automations but not manage them sees View only, and can look without changing anything.

The list

Go to Automation. The tiles at the top show Active automations and Needs attention, the number of runs that are held. Select Needs attention to open the held runs under Activity. Runs · last 24h counts the runs that started in the last 24 hours, and Completed clean is the share of the runs that ended in that time that ended normally, not counting runs someone cancelled. Completed clean shows a dash until a run has ended in that time. Select Active automations to list only the active ones, and select it again to list them all.

Each row shows the automation's name, its Trigger, its Status, how many runs are Live now and its Last run. A status is Active, Paused, Draft or Archived.

Use Search automations to find one by name. The filter button narrows the list by Status or by Source:

• Built here - automations your business made.
• Installed by modules - ready-made automations another part of Prevarro installs, each tagged with where it came from, such as From Payments.
• Managed - scheduled report packs and threshold alerts, tagged Managed by Reports. You set these up in Reports. Here you can only view their runs, and pause or resume them.

Select a row to open it.

From 80% of the day's limit on automated texts until the day ends, a banner above the list shows how many have gone. At the limit, automated texts pause until midnight. If you can manage automations, Raise today's cap on the banner raises the limit for today and held texts start sending. An Owner sets the limit under Settings → Integrations → SMS & Phone (Twilio) → Daily limits.

Activity

Activity, beside Automations at the top, lists the runs of every automation. Its count is the number of held runs.

• All runs shows each run with its Automation, Trigger, Status, when it Started and its Duration. Use Search automation runs, or Filters to narrow the list by Status or by automation.
• Dead-letter shows only the held runs. See Why is an automation run held?

Select Trace on a run to open it in its automation. If your role can manage automations, a held run also has Replay, and you can tick runs and select Replay in the bar that appears, which names how many held runs it will replay. If your role can export, Export downloads the runs as a CSV file.

Start a new automation

If your role can manage automations:

1. Select New automation.
2. Choose Start from a template to pick a ready-made flow from the Template library, such as No-show recovery or Welcome a new customer.
3. The new automation opens as a draft. Nothing runs until you publish it. Review request is different: it opens the Promoter review ask recipe in Feedback and makes no new automation.

Build from scratch opens a blank automation, but a blank automation can't take its first trigger yet. Select Discard draft in its header, then start from a template.

A template's text message step only sends once SMS is set up and switched on for your business. Until then, that step is skipped.

Build the flow

The automation opens on the Edit tab.

1. The flow starts from its trigger, at the top of the canvas.
2. Select + on a connection to add a step: Action, If / Else, Wait, Wait for event or Repeat, or Jump to an existing step… to send the path on to a later step.
3. Select a step on the canvas. Its settings open beside it.
4. Use the gear button for the automation's own settings, such as Quiet hours, Stop on reply and Re-enrolment.

Actions marked Not available yet can't be chosen. Not every action you can choose runs yet. The ones that run today are Send email, Send SMS, Send review request, Send feedback request, Send feedback reminder, Send report, Notify team, Enrol in automation, Remove from automation, Set fields, Add note, Add tag, Remove tag, and the actions that create or change a contact, organisation, opportunity, job, task or appointment. A run that reaches any other action is held. See Why is an automation run held?

Your edits save to a draft as you go.

Publish your changes

1. Select Publish. The review shows what changed since the live version, how many runs are under way, and what the automation would have done over the last 30 days.
2. If it's one of your own automations and it starts from an appointment, job, quote or invoice, the review also shows Is this a service message?, with its own explanation. The same switch is in the automation's settings.
3. If the review flags a problem in red, fix it first. Amber notes are for your information and don't stop you.
4. Select Publish v2 to make it live. The number is the next version.

Runs already under way finish on the version they started on. New runs use the new version.

Until you publish, the live version keeps being used. While you have changes that aren't live, the header shows Unpublished edits. Select it to see what changed, then choose Review & publish, Keep editing or Discard draft changes.

If your role doesn't have access to everything the new version uses, the button says Send for approval instead. The person who approves it sees the version with Approve and Reject. Until then, the live version keeps running, and you can select Withdraw to edit the draft again.

Watch it run

• Live shows the runs under way right now and the step each one is at.
• Trace shows past runs: Runs, Failures, Didn't run and Outcomes.
• Test checks the automation against your business's history.

The messages Payments installs

Payments installs the messages your customers get about their payments, such as Payment failed notice, Payment receipt and Refund notice, and the messages it sends you, such as Dispute opened notice and Payout failed notice. To see them with the other installed automations, filter Source by Installed by modules.

Payments decides when each message goes out. Here you change what it says, and switch it on or off.

To change a message's wording, open it, select the email step on the canvas, change the Subject or the Message, then publish as above.

Go back to Prevarro's wording

When an installed automation's live version differs from the one Prevarro shipped, select Reset to default from its row's menu, or from More actions in its header. Its wording, timing and settings go back to Prevarro's. Whether it's on or off, and its run history, are kept.

Duplicate an automation

Select Duplicate from a row's menu, or Duplicate automation from More actions in the header. An installed automation's steps can't be changed, only its wording, timing and settings. Where it offers Duplicate, your copy replaces it while your copy is on, and you can change your copy's steps.

Pause or delete an automation

• To stop an automation for now, select Pause from its row's menu, or Pause in the header when it's open.
• To turn it back on, select Set active from the row's menu, or Resume in the header.
• To act on several at once, tick them and use Pause, Set active or Delete in the bar that appears.

Before you pause or delete an automation that customers or your business rely on, Prevarro tells you what will no longer be sent. Make sure your business has another way to cover it.

Delete is permanent and ends its live runs. To delete one automation, you type its name to confirm. If you only want it to stop for a while, Pause keeps everything as it is.

Pause everything

In Automation, select Settings. The Pause everything switch is for an incident, and only someone whose role can manage automations can turn it on or off. While it's on, no new run starts, and runs already under way hold at their current step. They carry on from the same place when you switch it off. Appointment confirmations and reminders hold too, and scheduled report packs and threshold alerts don't run.

While it's on, a banner shows at the top of Automation, with Resume all to switch it off.

Pause everything doesn't reach the receipts and notices the payments engine sends itself, such as Payment failed notice, because that engine has its own switch. Payment failed - each retry and Card expiring - payment method reminder, which Payments also installs, are automations, so they hold with everything else.