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Understanding automation actions & triggers
Understanding automation actions & triggers

Understanding what's possible when setting up your automation actions & triggers

Updated this week

Each step of your automation will include an action and a trigger. Need more details? You’ve come to the right article.

📣 Note

This article references automations, available for Essentials and Premium plan members. Learn more about the features included in each plan here.


Actions

An action is the specific event that takes place in a particular automation step.

📣 Note

Your account may look a little different, depending on whether your account has smart files. If you do have smart files, you may not see the Send file via email option. If you don't, click here to learn more about smart files and add them to your account!

Send email

The Send email action allows you to select one of your existing email templates, or create a new email template, to include in that step of the automation.

After selecting or creating an email template, you can click Preview & edit > Edit This email to adjust the language of the email for this particular automation. Any changes you make to the email here will only affect the email in this automation—it won’t change your original template.

📣 Note

Editing an email within an automation untethers it from its template, so no future edits made to the original template will be reflected in the automation. If you opt to not edit the email within the automation, the selected email will remain tied to its template. Then, if you make changes within the original email template, those changes will be reflected in the automations in which that email has been left unedited.

If you wish to edit the email that goes out from a specific automation without affecting the original template, make sure that you’re editing the email directly within the automation.

Create task

The Create task action is simply for you! This allows the automation to add a task to your (or a member of your team's) task list, using the trigger and timing to assign the due date. When the automation reaches that step and the trigger occurs, the assignee will see the task appear. Your clients will not be able to see your task list.

Send file via email

📣 Note

You may not see this option if your account only has smart files, our newest file experience offering more power and customization!

The Send file via email action allows you to select your legacy file template of choice (a brochure or questionnaire) for that step of the automation. You’ll also choose an email template for this step, since legacy files always need to be sent with an email.

As with the Send an email action, you can click Preview & Edit > Edit This Email to adjust the language of the email Template for this particular automation. At the moment, however, you will not be able to individually edit the legacy file template for individual automations.

Send smart file via email

The Send smart file via email action allows you to select one of your existing smart templates to include in that step of the automation. You’ll also choose an email template for this step that will go out with the smart file.

📣 Note

If you choose to send a smart file with a contract via automation, the contract will send as-is. The contract signee will be listed as the first participant in the project.

As with the Send an Email action, you can click Preview & Edit > Edit This Email to adjust the language of the email template for this particular automation. At the moment, however, you will not be able to individually edit the smart template for specific automations.

Move Pipeline stage

The Move Pipeline stage action allows the automation to move the associated project to a particular pipeline stage when the chosen trigger occurs.

💡 This action takes manual work out of moving projects through your pipeline. If you have a unique trigger (such as: after a smart file is completed, after a session ends) that signals a pipeline stage move, you can use this action to have the stage move occur automatically.

Remember to also set up pipeline automations, for full control over your pipeline!


Triggers

Triggers allow you to dictate which event causes a step in an automation (the action) to occur, and when the action should fire.

📣 Note

At this time, some triggers are available only for smart files, and some only for legacy files. If a trigger is available only for legacy files, a note will be included below.

Once you’ve added an action to an automation, you’ll need to select the trigger.

After activating the automation

The action will trigger a set amount of time after the automation has been activated in a project. An automation can be activated automatically when a contact form is submitted, when a lead form is submitted, or you can activate by manually applying it to an individual project.

Before a project date / after a project date

The “project date” will either be the single date associated with the project, or the start date (if an end date is set). The action will trigger a set amount of time before or after the project date occurs, as it is set in the project details.

Before a project end date / after a project end date

The “end date” will need to be specified in your project details, in conjunction with a start date. If an end date is set, the action will trigger a set amount of time before or after the end date occurs.

📣 Note

If no end date is set, steps with an "end date" trigger will be skipped.

After the previous step is complete

The action will trigger a set amount of time after the previous step in the automation has completed. This is the only trigger that is dependent on other steps in the automation.

After a contract is signed

The action will trigger a set amount of time after a contract has been signed by a client. If the contract includes multiple signature lines for multiple clients, the action will trigger after the first signature has been added.

After a questionnaire is submitted

The action will trigger a set amount of time after a questionnaire has been submitted by a client.

After the invoice is paid in full

The action will trigger a set amount of time after the final payment in a payment schedule has been made. If the payment schedule only contains one payment (versus multiple payments), the action will trigger after the sole payment. The payment smart file or legacy file must be active (i.e., not expired) in order for trigger to function.

If a file contains a recurring payment, the trigger will only occur after the final payment date, IF there is an end date set.

📣 Note

Manually marking a payment as paid will not activate this trigger. If needed, you can manually trigger the step.

If your automation includes BOTH a “first payment” and “paid in full” trigger AND the automation is applied to a project with a single-payment smart file or legacy file, both automation steps will trigger when the sole payment is made.

After the first payment is made

The action will trigger a set amount of time after the first payment in a payment schedule has been made. If the payment schedule only contains one payment (versus multiple payments), the action will trigger after the sole payment. The payment smart file or legacy file must be active (i.e., not expired) in order for the trigger to function.

📣 Note

Manually marking a payment as paid will not activate this trigger.

After a project has been moved to the “Completed” stage

The action will trigger a set amount of time after the project has been moved into the Completed stage in your project pipeline. Moving a project here will need to be done by manually changing the project stage.

After a brochure is submitted

📣 Note

At this time, this trigger is not available for smart files—only for brochure legacy files.

The action will trigger a set amount of time after a brochure legacy file has been submitted by a client.

After a smart file is completed

The action will trigger after a smart file is completed. If you select this option, you can select the specific template(s) that will apply to this trigger, or all.

📚 Tip

A smart file is considered completed once the client has completed all actions and mandatory questions and navigated to the final page of the smart file. However, if the final page contains questions or actions, the client must submit the final page in order for the file to be considered completed.

You can also manually mark a smart file in which the client has completed all required actions as completed. Learn how here.

After all required signatures are signed

The action will trigger a set amount of time after all of the required signatures in a contract have been signed.

After session is scheduled

The action will trigger after a session is scheduled by a participant in the project.

When setting up your automation, you'll have the option to select which session types (including team members') will activate this trigger, or all.

After session starts

The action will trigger after the project's session begins.

When setting up your automation, you'll have the option to select which session types (including team members') will activate this trigger, or all.

After session ends

The action will trigger after the project's session ends.

When setting up your automation, you'll have the option to select which session types (including team members') will activate this trigger, or all.


Trigger rules & order of events

Each step in an automation will fire only once, even if the trigger applies to multiple smart files or legacy files.

For example, if the automation has a “first payment” trigger, it will fire only on the first payment of the first file. If there is a second file in the project containing payments, the trigger will not run again.

Automations also will not trigger retroactively. If you add an automation to a project after it's event trigger occurs in that project, the automation will wait until the next time the event trigger happens to run. You can always run the automation manually if the automation wasn't added in time.

The order in which steps trigger will depend on the triggers themselves; since most are not dependent on other triggers, they may occur in a different order than the steps you have in place!

For example:

Automation Step 1: trigger an action 1 week after project date

Automation Step 2: trigger an action 1 week before project date

In this case, Step 2 will run before Step 1.

You also may find that one event in HoneyBook triggers multiple automation steps.

For example:

Automation Step 1: trigger an action 1 week after first payment

Automation Step 2: trigger an action 1 week after invoice paid in full (i.e., after final payment)

If you apply this automation to a project with only one payment in the payment schedule, both steps will trigger when that single payment is made.


🚀 Get help from an automations expert: HoneyBook Pros are trusted professionals who can set up your automations and help take your business to the next level.



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