Overview
You can automate actions that happen under certain conditions. For example, when a payment is due and the event is 3 days away, you can have the system text the customer and charge their card on file.
Filters decide who is affected and when.
Actions decide what should happen.
Actions will show the 'Pending' and 'Completed' count. Pending will help you understand how many are yet to be processed. These numbers are set when the page is loaded so closing and re-opening the automation detail page is needed to get an updated count.
Available Actions
- Send an email to your company, a sales rep, or a customer.
- Send a text to a customer's, sales rep's, or worker's cell phone.
- Charge the customer's card on file to collect balance due (requires Global Payments).
- Set the status of the event.
- Modify the value of a field.
- Check items in and out of Maintenance.
- Use the send data option to integrate with webhooks or other services. Provide a URL and select a report to send data for each row. Each send counts against your API usage.
Duplicate Actions
When configuring actions, you can set how often they should be performed:
- 1–10 Times Per Lead: Performs the action 1–10 times per matching lead. Typically, 1 is recommended.
- Once Per Customer: Performs the action once per matching customer (useful for customer-focused automations).
- Once Per Customer of their Leads: Ensures the action triggers only once for a lead or their associated customer, even if multiple leads exist.
Customer-related actions are attempted once, while lead-related actions can be retried up to the specified limit—even if unsuccessful (e.g., email bounce, declined card). Corrections made later will not automatically trigger retries unless configured for multiple attempts.
Frequency
Automations check every 15 minutes by default (configurable). If you're allowing repeat actions, increase the frequency or tighten your filters to avoid over-triggering. For instance, a setting of 1440 (once per day) is common. Actions run in batches of up to 100 at a time.
Approval
Automations with an action affecting more than 50 records require staff approval when created or updated. Also changes to filters linked to an automation will dis-approve the automation. As long as under 50 records are affected it will automatically re-approve, otherwise staff will review it first which can take some time.
Multi-Location Accounts
Automations only run on leads associated with the same location as the automation.
Text limitations
- 200 text segments/hour
- 300 text segments/day
(One segment = 160 characters). Text automations attempting to send to more than 500 recipients will be flagged for review.
Common Examples
Charge balance the day before event
Requires Global Payments and card-on-file. Set up two automations:
- Automation 1: Charge Card - Balance
Filter: Event Date next 1 day, Status: Confirmed, Balance Due > 0, has card on file
Action: Charge card (balance due) - Automation 2: Charge Card - Notify of Failure
Filter: Same as Automation 1
Action: Email - Card Declined
Optional: Send a Payment Reminder email after the charge attempt, or update the Deposit Received email to inform the customer about the auto-charge.
Email and Text customer the day before event
Sends reminders 24 hours before the event:
- Filter: Event Date next 1 day, Status: Confirmed
- Action 1: Text - Reminder: "We'll be there at *setupstart* tomorrow!"
- Action 2: Email - Event Reminder
Note: Text automation requires IO Phone to be active.
Downgrade status if deposit not paid within 3 days of booking
Useful when holding equipment temporarily without payment:
Filter: Book Date over 3 days ago, Status: Hold/Contracted, Payment: $0
Action: Set Status: Quote or Cancelled