What this article covers
Pipedrive offers robust tools for automating activities to streamline your workflow. This guide covers automation triggers, activity linking, inserting fields into activity titles, using the Outcome field and custom fields in automations, and how to turn off the follow-up activity pop-up.
For customizing which fields appear on activities themselves — such as showing or hiding fields per activity type, creating custom fields, or requiring fields before an activity can be added or marked as done — see Customize activity fields.
Automating Activities
Setting Up Automations for Activity Creation
To automate the creation of a new activity after marking one as done:
Choose an activity as the trigger.
Specify that when an activity is marked as done, a new activity (e.g., a follow-up) is created after a set time, such as 5 days later.
Optionally, narrow the trigger using the Outcome field — for example, only create a follow-up if the outcome was "No answer." See [Using the Outcome Field in Automations] below.
Configure additional options, such as skipping weekends, to align with your schedule.
Troubleshooting Activity Linking in Automations
When automating the creation of deals from activities, ensure proper linking by:
Configuring activity linking during automation setup. Note that activities created first and linked to deals later require manual configuration.
Ensuring all necessary fields (e.g., linked organization, linked person, due date) are filled in.
Reviewing the automation's execution history for errors under Automations > History.
Understanding linking rules in Pipedrive: An activity linked to a deal is automatically linked to the deal's contact person and organization. However, linking a person/organization to a deal does not automatically link their activities.
Inserting Fields into Activity Titles
You can dynamically insert fields into activity titles using the “Insert Field” option in the Add Activity step. This allows you to populate values such as pipeline names or other deal fields into the activity subject.
Using the Outcome Field in Automations
The Outcome field can be used as both a trigger and a condition in automations. For example, you can set up an automation that runs when an activity's outcome is set to a specific result, such as "No answer" or "Connected" — or use the outcome as a condition to filter which activities an automation applies to. See Customize activity fields for how to set up and configure Outcome values.
Using Activity Custom Fields in Automations
In addition to the default activity fields, you can create your own custom fields for activities — see Customize activity fields for details on setting these up.
Activity custom fields can also be used as both triggers and conditions in automations. For example, you can set up an automation that runs when a custom field like "Current competitor" is set to a specific value, or use a custom field as a condition to filter which activities an automation applies to.
Limitations of Custom Fields in Automations
Adding Deal fields to a newly created activity requires a Deal-based trigger. If the automation is triggered by an Activity update, Deal custom fields cannot be pulled into the created activity.
Adjusting the Follow-up Activity Pop-up
When you mark an activity as done, Pipedrive automatically prompts you to create another activity, by default, because of its activity-based selling design. This happens whether or not you have any automations set up.
If you want to turn this off, you'll need an active automation in your account. Admins can then disable the pop-up by going to Company Settings > Activities > Show activity pop-up, either for the whole account or for specific pipelines. This option only appears once an automation exists — if you don't see it, create an automation first.