Setting automations for other users

Nikolai Sokolov

Hey, just wanted to mention this again:

the requirement to make users enable date based triggers, while regular workflows can be set to "triggered by anyone" is… backwards.

1. Most sales teams shouldn't be bothered with automation settings. They have a job and automation settings is not something that should slow down the motion
2. A friction in an approved process is worse than a security consideration that makes no sense (look at how your competitors handle it :)

Also, triggered by anyone setting should trigger that anyone's account, not the one of the admin. Example:

triggering an email + sms funnel shouldn't send emails out from the admin's account (most commonly the one setting up the automation), but rather from whoever is triggering the automation.

Just as an FYI: HubSpot killed it with workflow automation. Have a very close look at it. Currently, pipedrive's automation engine is something that could have an edge in several features, but is so difficult to implement in non-tech-savvy teams that it becomes a nuisance.

Nikolai Sokolov

as a longtime fan boy, I have to admit: workflow automation config currently sucks big time is very manual and time intense in pipedrive

Manuel Oliveira

Hi @Nikolai Sokolov thank you for your feedback! Regarding automation creation, I’m happy to say we’re working on some exciting updates to make automations easier to build. For example, you’ll be able to save your progress while designing an automation, instead of starting from the beginning.
This and other automation updates will be announced here in the community as they’re released, stay posted :)

Nikolai Sokolov

Thats great to hear, can't wait for the release notes!

Some other things that make workflow automations tedious to handle:

• can't change the trigger (this is very useful when cloning workflows). Need to redo the whooooole automation if you need the workflow to trigger for both create and update
• can't move steps around (very useful when a mistake in sequence of steps was made)
• can't copy-paste steps (email funnel with 10 emails and text messages? good luck)
• number of steps per workflow limitation
• the whole cloning and passing over ownership of workflows makes maintenance a horrible experience (let's manually update 40 clones of workflows!)
• have to use update actions to access properties of a linked object. I.e. workflow is deal-based. You need some custom fields from the linked contact person. Cant access those unless you have a step to update the person. All objects linked to the one triggering the automation should be available in full, always.

These are all quality of life issues of course.