How To Set Up A Workflow Automation

Workflows do the routine work your team currently does by memory — moving a project stage, creating the right task for the right person, notifying whoever needs to know. Set up well, they keep every job moving the same way without anyone chasing it.

Workflows handle what happens inside your business. Campaigns handle communication going out to customers.

Before you start

Workflows apply account-wide. A workflow you create runs on every project in your account that matches its trigger and conditions — not just your own projects, and not just your team's. Build them as company process, and use conditions to control scope.

Manager, Admin, and Owner roles can create and edit workflows. If Workflows isn't visible in your navigation, that's a permissions setting — check with your admin.

Where do I find workflows?

Click Workflows in the left navigation menu. You'll see every workflow you've created, and which ones are currently active.

How do I create a workflow?

1. Click Create Workflow in the top right.
2. Give the workflow a name.
3. Choose your trigger event.
4. Add conditions to filter when it fires (optional).
5. Add one or more actions.
6. Save.
   
   

What is a trigger event?

The trigger is the moment that starts the automation. Common ones include:

• Project stage or status changes
• Estimate sold
• Proposal sent or signed
• Invoice sent or overdue
• Task completed
• Document signed
• Event scheduled
• Measurement report ordered or returned

The full list is available when you click Trigger Event. Some triggers have a second level — selecting Appointment Type Scheduled, for instance, lets you choose which appointment type, drawn from the event types configured in your account.

What are conditions and why should I use them?

Conditions filter the trigger so it only fires when you want it to. They're optional — but because workflows run account-wide, conditions are how you keep an automation from touching every project in the business.

Example: trigger on a sales appointment being scheduled, but only for roofing projects on the retail or insurance tracks — not repairs.

What actions can a workflow take?

You can add multiple actions to one workflow. Click Add Another Action to keep going.

How do I set up an Update Project action?

Choose what changes when the trigger fires — for example, moving the project to the Estimating stage with a status of Scheduled.

How do I set up a Create Task action?

1. Name the task — for example, "Order Measurement Report."
2. Choose who it's assigned to:
   • A project role (the salesperson on that project)
   • A contact role (the contact owner)
   • A specific team member who always does this
3. Set the due date — either relative (a number of days from the trigger) or an exact date.
4. Add a description (optional).
5. Optionally, lock the project status so it can't change until this task is complete.
   
   

What are smart fields?

Smart fields pre-fill contact or project information into a task name or description — the contact's name, the address, and other details.

Instead of a queue of tasks all reading "Order Measurement Report," each one reads as the specific job it belongs to.

How do I set up a notification action?

Choose who receives it — a project role, a contact role, or an individual team member — and how it's delivered: in-app, email, or push.

What is a checklist and why does it matter?

When a workflow creates tasks, you can optionally save those tasks as a checklist and name it — for example, "Sales Appointment Checklist."

This is the feature that lets automations compound. Once a checklist exists, checklist completed becomes an available trigger for a new workflow. So when every task in the sales appointment checklist is done, the next workflow fires — moving the project forward, creating the next round of tasks, notifying the next person.

How do I activate or pause a workflow?

Two places:

• While editing or building a workflow — use the activate/paused toggle at the top of the screen
• From the workflow list — under the Active column

Pause a workflow rather than deleting it when you're troubleshooting or seasonally turning something off.

Example: sales appointment scheduled

Putting it together:

Trigger: Appointment type scheduled → Sales Appointment

Conditions: Roofing projects, retail or insurance tracks only

Actions:

1. Update project → stage Estimating, status Scheduled
2. Create task → "Order Measurement Report," assigned to the salesperson, due in 1 day
3. Create task → assigned to a specific team member, due in 2 days
4. Save tasks as Sales Appointment Checklist

Then build a second workflow triggered on Sales Appointment Checklist completed.

Tips and gotchas

• Remember the blast radius. Workflows run account-wide. A workflow built to solve one rep's problem creates tasks and moves stages on every project in the company that matches. Before saving, ask how many projects this will touch — not how many you were thinking about.

• Always set conditions. Without them, a stage change automation meant for roofing retail jobs will also fire on repairs, warranty calls, and commercial work. This is the number one cause of "why did everyone get five tasks?"

• Test on a real project before turning it loose. Create a project that matches your conditions, trigger it, and watch what happens. Workflows that misfire quietly are much harder to catch than ones you're watching.

• Pause first, diagnose second. If a workflow is doing something unexpected, toggle it to paused from the list view immediately. That stops the bleeding while you figure out what's wrong, without losing the setup.

• Use relative due dates for recurring process, exact dates for deadlines. "Two days from the trigger" works on every job regardless of when it starts. An exact date is for something tied to a real calendar deadline — a permit cutoff, a season change — and will go stale once it passes.

• Locking status is powerful and blocks people. Locking a project until a task completes is how you enforce process — and it's also how a project sits stuck while someone's on vacation. Use it for steps that genuinely must not be skipped, not for everything.

• Use smart fields on every task you automate. A task list of identical names is unusable. This is a small setting that makes a large difference to whoever works the queue.

• Assign to roles, not people, wherever you can. Assigning to "the salesperson on this project" survives turnover and reassignment. Assigning to a named individual breaks the day they leave or take a week off.

• Build one workflow and live with it for a week. The temptation with compounding checklists is to map your entire process on day one. Start with the one handoff that gets dropped most often, get it right, then chain the next.