Segment or split an automation into different paths

Andrew Earles
Andrew Earles Member Posts: 9 VERIFIED MEMBER
25 Up Votes Second Anniversary First Comment Photogenic

I would really like the ability to split an automation into different paths. Each path would run based on different filters and conditions. Please add to your list of ideas to implement

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  • Simon - JYGA
    Simon - JYGA Member Posts: 2 VERIFIED MEMBER
    First Comment
    edited June 2023 #2

    Je pense qu'il serait vraiment bien d'avoir la possibilité de donner 2 actions possibles à nos conditions.

    Proposer 1 "chemin" si la condition est vrai, un second si elle est fausse.

    exemple :

    Envoie d'un mail + délai

    si "l'email à reçu une réponse" est :

    • vrai - alors action : changement d'étape
    • faux - alors action : mail relance


  • Rodrigo Rojas
    Rodrigo Rojas Member Posts: 54 VERIFIED MEMBER
    Fourth Anniversary 10 Comments 5 Up Votes Name Dropper
    edited August 2023 #3

    We need to request in workflows to have a PATH function, similar of what ZAPIER has to build conditional workflows (https://zapier.com/features/paths), since for example we need to do certain workflows that have different "paths" due to a conditional.

    Example:

    "We have 4 sales teams and we need to build a workflow to convert into a project based on the leader of each team and assign different activities based on the owner of the deal, so in this case we need to build 4 different workflows. If we only have "conditional" functionality, we can just build only 1 workflow and look for the owner and take the path to do that, similar of what is done in chatbots."

    This will help the live of too many people like us that fill out hundreds of workflows in semi-complex situations like this.

  • Rodrigo Rojas
    Rodrigo Rojas Member Posts: 54 VERIFIED MEMBER
    Fourth Anniversary 10 Comments 5 Up Votes Name Dropper
    edited September 2023 #4

    What do you think about this guys?

  • lloydmedley
    lloydmedley Member Posts: 3 VERIFIED MEMBER
    First Comment

    I'd really like this too. I can make it work anyway with multiple of automations, but this would greatly simplify things.

    E.g. If stage is changed to "2" then "send email template 2", or if it was changed to stage "3" then "send email tempalte 3" etc. It could all be done in one automation.

  • Graham Cox
    Graham Cox Member Posts: 154 VERIFIED MEMBER
    100 Comments Second Anniversary 25 Likes 5 Up Votes
    edited September 2023 #6

    I'm not 100% but I think this may be in the works Rodrigo. Got a feeling they mentioned conditional paths in workflow automations during the last webinar. I could be wrong though.

  • Manuel Oliveira
    Manuel Oliveira Admin Posts: 1,323 COMMUNITY MANAGER
    1000 Comments 250 Likes 25 Answers Third Anniversary
    edited September 2023 #7

    Hi everyone, there is something along these lines being worked on. I will be sure to gather community feedback in one post so the product team can go over it.

  • Julian L. A.
    Julian L. A. Member Posts: 5 VERIFIED MEMBER
    Third Anniversary First Comment

    Hello all!

    It is now Februaey 2024. Does anyone know if there has been an update om the workflow path issue?

  • The same question.

    Is there some estimated time of realising this feature?

  • wonders
    wonders Member Posts: 45 VERIFIED MEMBER
    10 Comments 5 Up Votes First Anniversary 5 Likes

    This really is an absolute must especially considering the limits to the number of workflows you can have. Not being able to do paths, being limited to only one trigger per workflow, IE needing 2 workflows for 'deal created in stage' vs 'deal updated in stage' or requiring separate workflows for the same field being changed whether it's a lead or a deal requires a lot of extra management of workflows. Now imagine that for multi-lingual workflows, it's brutal.

    Other platforms are constantly rolling out new features and it seems like the development at Pipedrive has reached a stand-still. While I really like Pipedrive, it is rather discouraging that development, if any, seems to be going at an alarmingly slow pace.

  • ahmed ali
    ahmed ali Member Posts: 3 VERIFIED MEMBER
    5 Up Votes First Comment Photogenic

    They have to add this. The workflows is very weak and i been thinking to move to GHL because of their workflows. You can pause upon reply, have trigger links to start another workflows. and so many other useful features. I love Pipedrive and don't want to change please enhance the workflows it saves us time

  • wonders
    wonders Member Posts: 45 VERIFIED MEMBER
    10 Comments 5 Up Votes First Anniversary 5 Likes

    We actually use GHL too and have been considering switching over completely. When we first started GHL was missing some core functionality we needed so we decided to tie in Pipedrive but GHL has come a long way and continues to improve.

    We really prefer the UI in Pipedrive for the agents and don’t want to switch but as we grow, automations become an even more integral part of our business and PD just has so many limitations. So end of the day, like Ahmed said, please improve the workflows :)

  • rthints
    rthints Member Posts: 1 VERIFIED MEMBER
    First Comment

    bringing this up seeing if there is any progress on this, or even taking people out of an automation flow?

  • Nikolai Sokolov
    Nikolai Sokolov Member Posts: 123 VERIFIED MEMBER
    100 Comments Third Anniversary 25 Likes 5 Up Votes

    Hi @Manuel Oliveira , please escalate this to the team - very essential feature of workflow automations. HubSpot nailed it with three different variations for branching, making it easy to design complex workflows. Currently, the limitation of just one conditional makes workflow automations super limited and we always switch to make for anything more complex than a 2-step automation. Given the webhooks in automations are unusable currently (the admin permission fiasco), workflow automations are the last thing we mention to clients or touch in the setups because they are just very, very limited.

  • wonders
    wonders Member Posts: 45 VERIFIED MEMBER
    10 Comments 5 Up Votes First Anniversary 5 Likes

    @Manuel Oliveira I'd love to bump this as well. It's almost been a year since we heard workflows are being improved but we're all still anxiously waiting. We REALLY need to be able to create more advanced workflows involving branches / split paths and multiple triggers. IMO this should be the #1 priority for Pipedrive's development team. For example, right now we have to have separate automations for "Deal Created In Stage" and "Deal Stage Changed To", and in both English and Spanish. That's 4 automations that should easily be consolidated into one. Or deal won/lost in both English and Spanish - 4 automations required that should be 1. Currently I'd say 80-90% of our automations are just like this.

    1. No branches / split paths or multiple triggers makes managing the workflows a confusing nightmare
    2. The limited number of workflows you can have in an account based on how they currently operate should be criminal 😂
    3. (Off Topic) - The 10 action limit per workflow being increased would be nice. We use workflows to build cadences that involve calls, emails and SMS's. New lead → create call attempt 1, once it's marked complete & no deal created, automate an email, SMS, and create call attempt 2 activity, so on and so forth. That's 4 actions and a lead has only received 1 call attempt.

    I know every Pipedrive user would really appreciate, and benefit tremendously, by improving the workflows. I'm sure there are other good examples out there, but I'd suggest taking a look at GoHighLevel's workflows which are the best I've seen. The flexibility their provides allows users to build for nearly infinite scenarios. This would be a MONUMENTAL improvement for Pipedrive. Any time I've recommended Pipedrive to someone, their biggest reason for not sticking with it has been the workflows.

  • Nikolai Sokolov
    Nikolai Sokolov Member Posts: 123 VERIFIED MEMBER
    100 Comments Third Anniversary 25 Likes 5 Up Votes

    @wonders for the time being, one workaround to consolidate deals matching several other criteria for the trigger, use the filter option. general idea:

    • create a deal filter that scopes by several conditions, i.e. english and spanish deals
    • in the instant condition section of the automation, use filter option in conditions

    this will effectively check wether the deal matches the filter or not, which in turn can have complex matching handled.

    @Manuel Oliveira can you please remind wether the matches filter triggers only once? Can't find documentation on that, but remember vaguely that the match filter only triggers when the deal enters a filter for the first time.

  • wonders
    wonders Member Posts: 45 VERIFIED MEMBER
    10 Comments 5 Up Votes First Anniversary 5 Likes

    @Nikolai Sokolov I appreciate the suggestion and I'll definitely see if there's anything I can consolidate. We do use the matches filter option in Zapier for a few things but that is the trigger itself. It appears that in Pipedrive the filter has to be triggered by a deal updated or a deal created etc though right? I need to consolidate those triggers into one! :)

    Say I want to trigger a series of emails for customers that either are created in stage X, or moved to stage X. If I create a filter, how can I trigger off of both of those? I guess that is a great question if it'll filter only once. For example, say a customer enters the workflow through that filter, I send email 1, now I add a wait. After the wait, I want to check if the customer is still in stage X and send email 2. Will that filter still pass?

    Ultimately the biggest short coming for us is the lack of paths. For example, workflows involving language - we can get both languages to trigger, but we want to send automated emails or SMS's in the customers native language. So instead of doing paths, we have two identical workflow triggers but with two different language conditions.

    I'll be interested in seeing if that filter only triggers once. I'll try to test it out today if I get a chance.

  • Randall Pena
    Randall Pena Member Posts: 36 VERIFIED MEMBER
    Fourth Anniversary 10 Comments 5 Likes Name Dropper

    Hi @Manuel Oliveira any news on this? In terms features, Pipedrive is left in the dust by other CRM and I'm sure you'll agree. Look at all the hacks and hoola hoops the users has to do in order to become efficient in Pipedrive. In the end people are loosing more time and money using Pipedrive.

    If only data migration is easy and less costly I would already be in a happy place (that is with hubspot).

    It's hard to grow with Pipedrive. There is just so many limitations.

  • Amit Sarda (AmitSarda.xyz)
    Amit Sarda (AmitSarda.xyz) Member Posts: 1,609 VERIFIED MEMBER
    1000 Comments 250 Likes Fourth Anniversary 25 Answers

    I have started implementing these flows in one of Make/Integromat or Zapier or Relay.app.

  • Randall Pena
    Randall Pena Member Posts: 36 VERIFIED MEMBER
    Fourth Anniversary 10 Comments 5 Likes Name Dropper

    Thanks @Amit Sarda (AmitSarda.xyz) I was actually thinking of doing the same with Make/Integromat.

  • wonders
    wonders Member Posts: 45 VERIFIED MEMBER
    10 Comments 5 Up Votes First Anniversary 5 Likes

    @Randall Pena I couldn't agree more. We're on the brink of leaving Pipedrive as painful as it may be to migrate the data. At some point we need to pull the band-aid off. As our business grows we're in the same boat having to implement more and more hacks for very rudimentary tasks. Our business is beginning to feel like it's held together by duct-tape. While Make and Zapier may be able to handle some of the short comings, having to create more integrations to handle basic operations feels like we're slapping more tape on. Over the last few years we've remained hopeful that improvements were coming, but at this point I think it's pretty clear that Pipedrive is no longer actively developing it's platform in an effort to be competitive with other CRMs.

    You said it best, people are losing time and money with Pipedrive. That's us.

  • Nikolai Sokolov
    Nikolai Sokolov Member Posts: 123 VERIFIED MEMBER
    100 Comments Third Anniversary 25 Likes 5 Up Votes

    Hi @wonders I think make/zapier is an essential part of any CRM setup. We do both HubSpot and pipedrive setups and end up using make with both - there's just no way around it. While it is true that HubSpot has a better automation suite with more capabilities, we still end up using make for whatever HubSpot can't handle internally.

    While I do agree that simple branching is essential, handling stuff with make became really straightforward since webhooks has been introduced. Financially, it's actually still cheaper to do pipedrive + make than HubSpot + make, simply because HubSpot is much, much more expensive.

    So I disagree with the statement of make = duct tape. It's more of a "automation in 2024".

    That being said, I'd really welcome branching in pipedrive :)

  • Randall Pena
    Randall Pena Member Posts: 36 VERIFIED MEMBER
    Fourth Anniversary 10 Comments 5 Likes Name Dropper

    To be fair, the automated webhook did relieve a lot of frustrations on my part. I didn't realize until now that Make/Zapier is indispensable to any CRM setup.

    Thanks for that perspective @Nikolai Sokolov, it somehow eased up my grievance.

    And yes, branching within Pipedrive is still something we all need, it's a basic and essential feature of a workflow automation. It simplify things and lessens our costs.

    Also increasing the 10 actions limit per workflow would be a big help.

    It would be in Pipedrive's best interest to pack more value to their CRM at an affordable price, that's how they get a giant market share and beat their competition.

  • wonders
    wonders Member Posts: 45 VERIFIED MEMBER
    10 Comments 5 Up Votes First Anniversary 5 Likes
    edited October 20 #24

    While Make/Zapier may be essential for integrations between other platforms and the CRM, it shouldn't need to be used to perform tasks that should be handled by the CRM. The fact remains that Pipedrive has quite a few shortcomings that other established and actively developed CRMs don't have. And very basic functionality at that.

    For example, there's no way to view all leads for a contact. You can only see open leads. The ONLY way to get to a previously archived lead from a contact is by searching for it in the search bar. Now as a high volume company, imagine having 17 John Smiths, each of which could have several leads, and now your agent needs to find the notes related to the previously archived leads to understand the customers situation better. You search "John Smith" and 100 of them come up with no email, no phone number, no status (you don't know if it's opened or archived). That's just one nuance related to leads, there are 1,000.

    The workflow automation needs a complete overhaul. Even just getting access to the fields of connected objects is brutal having to hack it with some assigning of "Linked Person to the Linked Person" etc. I may expect the MVP approach from a new CRM, but I expect a lot more out of Pipedrive.

    No perfect solution exists, and no company has every feature. But what's alarming to me is that suggestions pour into the community boards and many have been a huge concern for many users for years on end but have yet to be implemented. The zip code for address fields and branching are prime examples. The important thing is to keep moving forward, and sometimes it feels like the Pipedrive train is at a stand still. Pipedrive is established enough and has enough integrations, with more functionality they could easily increase the price and have no trouble getting it.