What is the best process for this kind of automation?
I want to automate a bunch of Activities (say around 10) that happen in successively longer periods of time.
For example when a Deal enters and new Stage, I want to follow up after 1 day, then 2 days, then 3 days, and so on.
I could add them all at once, but it seems clunky to have 10 Activities all scheduled at the same time.
I'd rather have a new one scheduled when the last one is complete but I'm having trouble figuring out how to do that while still having different types of Activities and have them due at different lengths of time.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Comments
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Create an automation to create a new activity whenever the previous one is marked done.
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Amit Sarda said:
Create an automation to create a new activity whenever the previous one is marked done.
That was my first go to. So I tried that but what happened was all 5 automations I did ran at the same exact time.
I couldn't find a way to cause 1 specific automation to be the trigger.
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Amit Sarda said:
Create an automation to create a new activity whenever the previous one is marked done.
Hi,
you need to specify what kind of activity are you closing via adding some condition. You can use for example type of activity, my best practise is to match the standardised name.
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I need to revisit our follow-up automation and make some tweaks but I did it by adding some pipeline stages. When a deal is moved into a pipeline stage it sends an email and SMS follow/up to the customer and schedules an activity which, when it falls due (and is marked completed), moves the deal to the next stage in the pipeline that executes another round of outgoing comms to the customer and schedules the next followups. (so we have 1st, 2nd and 3rd f/u lanes. The advantage of having to mark an activity as completed to move the deal along is you have the ability to tweak the timings for an individual deal at any stage in the followup pipeline. (but we have default values for the activities (created via automation) that are separated by 7, 5 and 2 days)
I put conditions on the actions so that they only fire on specific activities being completed, on deals that are not won or lost etc.
There is probably a better way to do it but that's what I've been doing for a while. ... The only downside is the extra stages cram up the pipeline but the metrics are useful in working out the percentage of followup attempts that get a response at the various stages. .. eg that 20%+ of customers responded on the third follow up attempt etc.
Another downside is you need to be careful you don't accidentally move a deal into a stage or check off an activity as completed in error as you end up firing out erroneous communications as a result.
Would be interested in a better way though...
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Hey Daniel,
Klenty allows you to automate activities as well as emails. you can set different sequences for different deal stage.
When a deal enters a new stage, activities can be scheduled for Day1, day3, day 5 .
Click here if you are interested to take 14 day free trial.
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Nancy Vamvakas said:
I need to revisit our follow-up automation and make some tweaks but I did it by adding some pipeline stages. When a deal is moved into a pipeline stage it sends an email and SMS follow/up to the customer and schedules an activity which, when it falls due (and is marked completed), moves the deal to the next stage in the pipeline that executes another round of outgoing comms to the customer and schedules the next followups. (so we have 1st, 2nd and 3rd f/u lanes. The advantage of having to mark an activity as completed to move the deal along is you have the ability to tweak the timings for an individual deal at any stage in the followup pipeline. (but we have default values for the activities (created via automation) that are separated by 7, 5 and 2 days)
I put conditions on the actions so that they only fire on specific activities being completed, on deals that are not won or lost etc.
There is probably a better way to do it but that's what I've been doing for a while. ... The only downside is the extra stages cram up the pipeline but the metrics are useful in working out the percentage of followup attempts that get a response at the various stages. .. eg that 20%+ of customers responded on the third follow up attempt etc.
Another downside is you need to be careful you don't accidentally move a deal into a stage or check off an activity as completed in error as you end up firing out erroneous communications as a result.
Would be interested in a better way though...
This was my initial thoughts for a solution. But I have about 15 stages of follow up I want to do, so the pipeline stage cram that you talk about is what made me want to seek a different answer.
This way seems like it might be the simplest though.
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Amit Sarda said:
Create an automation to create a new activity whenever the previous one is marked done.
I think this might be the answer! I didn't realize you can add a condition based on words in the Activity subject. I will try this today thank you.
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I wanted this for a long time and finally figured it out.
In Pipe drive, an action has to be triggered. for example an updated deal or action, it then can trigger automation.
The trick was how to trigger the automation.My goal was to send follow-up emails on my quotes at 4 days, 2 weeks, 8Weeks, 16 Weeks, 30Weeks and then every 60 days until closed or won and I wanted this automated.
I finally got it to work and I Love it.I do this with automation and Action filters in pipe drive but the problem is triggering the automation. Pipedrive does not poll the filters.
The key is using the Pipedrive filters and an outside program like Zapier or Integration to keep checking the Pipedrive filter. (this is called polling, I am told that pipedrive may have this at some point this year)
here is how it works.
I quote a deal,
I manually move to the next stage, called "quoted"
Automation sets up a follow-up email task 4 days later.
every 5 mins Zapier Checks a Pipedrive action filter called "Send 4-day follow-up"
(This filter is set up to look for any deals that have an action due today)(this next step is the trick, that makes this work)
Zapier looks at the filter, if there anything that comes up it then updates the note section of the action that matches with just a word, I used "update". By doing this simple update to the action, THAT triggers the Pipedrive automation to send the follow-up email based a PD template.
Then Zapier delays for a minute, then it updates the activity as done, then (in my case) Move the deal to my next stage which is a "2 week followup", then a different PD automation setups a new email task for 2 weeks out.
This is a screenshot of Zapier.
In my PD automation,
- I send the follow-up email
and do it all again in two weeks.
Below is an excel that shows the four components.
Automation
Filters
Templates
Zapier
I hope that helps. It took me a long time and a lot of trial and error but the result has increased sales.
good luck
Larry
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