A Flow turns a pipeline column into an automated follow-up sequence. Before flows, a column could send one automated message when a lead arrived. A flow can do much more:
wait a set time
check whether the lead has booked, attended or bought something
branch on the answer
send a series of emails, SMS or push notifications
add or remove tags
move the lead to another column
Each column can have its own flow, and you can watch every lead's progress through it.
Example: a lead lands in New Lead → send a welcome email → wait up to 3 days for them to book a class → Yes: move them to Trial Booked · No: send a "still thinking about it?" SMS, wait 4 days, then move them to In-Progress.
📍 Where to Find It
Go to Marketing > Leads and open the pipeline board. Each column header has a Flow button:
+ Flow ⭐: the column has no flow yet. Click it to build one.
⚡ Flow on · 12 in progress: the column's flow is live. The number shows how many leads are in it right now. Click it to edit the flow or check on those leads.
Clicking either one opens the Flow editor for that column.
🔑 Plan & Access
Flows are part of Leads, which needs the Premium plan. Staff need the Marketing permission.
Sending messages from a flow needs a plan that includes automated messaging. If your plan doesn't include it, the editor shows a yellow banner and the Send message step is disabled. You can still use waits, conditions, tags and moves.
➡️ When a Flow Starts and Stops
A flow starts whenever a lead enters the column. That includes when a lead is:
dragged there on the board, or moved with the Column dropdown
placed there by a lead form (as its Start column)
added manually or imported into that column
moved there by another column's flow
A flow stops when the lead leaves the column. If you drag a lead out halfway through, nothing else in that flow happens to them. If the new column has a flow, that flow starts instead.
A few more rules:
Notifications toggle: if the board's Notifications toggle is Off when you move a lead, the lead's old flow still stops, but the new column's flow doesn't start. Use this when you're tidying up the board and don't want to message anyone.
Dropping a lead back into the same column doesn't restart its flow. The flow just keeps going.
Leads already in a column when you turn a flow on aren't started. The flow only runs for leads that enter the column after it's turned on.
🧱 Building a Flow
Every flow begins with a Lead enters column step. To add what happens next, click + under any step and choose a step type. To edit a step, click it and use the panel on the right.
Step | What it does |
Wait | Pauses for a set number of minutes, hours or days. |
Wait until… | Pauses until the lead does something (for example, books a class) or a time limit runs out. If the condition is met in time, the lead goes down the Yes branch. If the time runs out, they go down the No branch. |
If / else | Checks a condition once, when the lead reaches this step, and sends them down the Yes or No branch. |
Send message | Sends an Email, SMS or Push notification. |
Update tags | Adds or removes tags on the lead's student account. |
Move to column | Moves the lead to a column in any pipeline. This ends the current flow and starts the destination column's flow (or sends its single automated message if it doesn't have a flow). |
Flows are a branching tree: a branch can split into Yes/No paths, but paths never join back together or loop. A Move to column step always ends its path. A flow can have up to 100 steps.
Deleting a step also deletes every step below it. Groovio asks you to confirm and tells you how many steps will go.
✉️ Send message
Email: enter a Subject, then click Design email to build it in the email editor.
SMS: up to 480 characters. Every 160 characters is charged as one SMS.
Push: a title (up to 100 characters) and a message (up to 200 characters).
Placeholders fill in the lead's and your studio's details:
[first_name][last_name][full_name][email][phone][studio_name][studio_email][studio_phone]Only send once per lead, even if they re-enter this column: tick this so a lead who leaves and comes back doesn't get the same message twice.
SMS and push only reach leads that are linked to a student account. Leads without one skip SMS and push steps. Email works for any lead with an email address.
🔍 Conditions (Wait until, If / else and Goals)
Conditions use the same rule builder as Dynamic Customer Lists. You can check:
Booking: has booked / has not booked
Attendance: attended / no show / absent
Membership: has active / does not have active / has ever had
Package: has active / has credits remaining / has ever had
Spend: spent at least / at most
Tag: has any of / does not have any of
Term: has booked / has not booked
Joined, Birthday and Age
For time-based rules, choose Since entering this column to count only what the lead has done since they arrived. For example, "Has booked a class since entering this column."
You can add up to 5 conditions to a step and choose whether the lead must meet All of these or Any of these.
How conditions find the lead's activity: conditions check the student account linked to the lead. If the lead isn't linked to a student yet, Groovio looks for a connected student with the same email address. If it doesn't find exactly one, the condition counts as not met.
How often conditions are checked: a Wait until… step checks every 15 minutes at first, and less often for leads that have been waiting a long time. An If / else step checks once, at the moment the lead reaches it.
🎯 Goals
Goals are watched the whole time a lead is in the column, even while the lead is partway through a wait. As soon as a lead meets a goal, the goal's actions run and the lead's flow ends.
To set them up, click Goals in the editor's toolbar. For each goal:
Give it a name, for example "Booked a trial".
Set When the lead… using the same conditions as above, for example "has booked since entering this column".
Add up to 5 actions under Then: Send message, Update tags, and/or Move to column (one move per goal).
You can add up to 5 goals per column. If a lead meets more than one goal at the same time, only the first one runs.
After the steps finish: a lead who reaches the end of a path stays in the flow as Watching goals. If they later meet a goal (for example, they book a class a week after your last email), the goal still runs. Goals are watched for up to a year after the lead entered the column.
Tip: goals are the easiest way to stop chasing someone who has already converted. A "Booked a class → move to Trial Booked" goal pulls the lead out of your follow-up sequence the moment they book, so they never get a "haven't seen you yet!" message after booking.
🚀 Saving, Publishing & Turning Off
The toolbar at the top of the editor shows the flow's status: Draft, Live · v3 (live, version 3) or Off.
Save draft: saves your work without changing what's live.
Publish & turn on (first time) or Publish changes (after that): makes the flow live.
If anything needs fixing first, such as an email with no subject, an empty condition, or a deleted tag or column, the toolbar shows ⚠ N to fix. Click it to jump to each problem. Publishing is blocked until they're fixed.
Changes only affect leads who enter the column after you publish. Leads already in the flow finish on the version they started with.
Turn off: stops the flow. Leads partway through stop where they are, and new leads entering the column won't start it. Groovio tells you how many leads are affected before you confirm.
If you leave the editor with unsaved changes, Groovio asks you to confirm first.
Flows replace the column's single automated message. While a column's flow is on, the column's Automated message set in Pipeline Settings doesn't send, so leads never get both. If you turn the flow off, the single message goes back to working as before.
📊 Seeing Who's in a Flow
Numbers on each step show how many leads are at that step right now. Counts refresh every minute.
Click a step, then See the N lead(s) at this step to list them.
Click Leads in flow in the toolbar to see everyone. You can filter by In progress, Finished, Goal met, Stopped, Failed or All. The list shows where each lead is and when they'll be checked next.
Click a lead to see their flow history: each step they've passed through, what happened (for example Message queued, Moved, Tags added, Skipped - opted out) and when.
Stop ends one lead's flow without affecting anyone else.
Why a step was skipped
Shown as | Meaning |
Skipped - no linked student | An SMS, push or tag step reached a lead with no student account. |
Skipped - no email address | An email step reached a lead with no email address. |
Skipped - opted out | The student has opted out of messages from your studio. |
Skipped - student inactive | The linked student account is inactive or deleted. |
Skipped - already sent | The step is set to Only send once per lead and the lead already received it. |
Skipped - tags deleted or disabled | The tags in the step no longer exist or are turned off. |
Skipped - plan does not include messaging | Your plan doesn't include automated messaging. |
Not moved - moved too often | See the safety note below. |
Safety net: if flows move the same lead back and forth (for example, two columns whose flows move leads into each other), Groovio stops that lead's flow after 10 automatic moves in an hour or 30 in a day. Moves made by staff don't count toward this.
❓ FAQ
I published a flow, but leads already in the column didn't get anything.
That's expected. Flows only start when a lead enters the column after the flow is turned on. To start the flow for an existing lead, move them out of the column and back in, with the Notifications toggle On.
I moved a lead, and their flow didn't start.
Check the Notifications toggle on the board. When it's Off, moves are silent and don't start flows.
A lead booked a class, but the flow still went down the "No" branch.
Conditions check the student account linked to the lead. If the lead isn't linked, Groovio matches them to a connected student by email. If the email they booked with is different, or more than one student shares that email, the condition can't be matched. Open the lead and check the linked student.
Will editing my flow change things for leads who are already in it?
No. Leads already in the flow finish on the version they started with. Only new entries use your changes.
Can I still use the old single message on a column?
Yes. Columns without a flow work exactly as before. If a column has a flow, the flow takes over while it's on.
Where do sent messages show up?
Flow messages go out through the same system as your other automated messages and appear in Marketing > Automated Messages under the name Lead workflow messages. They also show in the lead's flow history in Leads in flow.
💡 Why It Matters
Flows let your follow-up keep up with your leads. They chase people who haven't booked, stop as soon as someone converts, and move leads to the right column without anyone dragging cards around. Your team can spend their time talking to the warm leads.