How to chain multiple mail reminders with differing timings into one automation?

[0800-grizzly]

Hi,

In our CRM we have several different situations, where reminder mails should start going out to contacts. Many of these are chained so that if the contact doesn't respond (e.g. sign up again after an event they cancelled), there will be reminders 1, 2 and 3 with some days time in between.

Originally I created these as separate automations, it was simple and easy to overview. The triggers were "When records match conditions", like this (simplified):

• Reminder 1 - When record match conditions: "status = cancelled"
• Reminder 2 - When record match conditions: "status = cancelled" + "when cancelled = is numbers of days ago 2"
• Reminder 3 - When record match conditions: "status = cancelled" + "when cancelled = is numbers of days ago 5"

But having several of these situations split up into separate automations eat up a lot of the automations quota, so I tried to integrate reminders 1-3 into one automation. So I used just one trigger "When record match conditions: "status = cancelled"" to catch all cases, and then built Conditional Logic steps for "Reminder 1 = immediately", "Reminder 2 = two days after" and "Reminder 3 = five days after".

After completing the setup and testing the whole automation, I realised what I obviously should have thought of before: this only triggers once, when the record is marked "cancelled", and not when the record hits the 2 or 5 day case. Stupid me :D.

I could probable build own views for each case [immediately, +2 days, +5 days], and use the "When record enters view" -trigger. I have, however, been reluctant to use view for automations. I feel they are less robust than "When records match condition", since they are relying on a separate construct to work. Currently it is only me who has base access, but it horrifies having to think about not changing views by mistake.

But **bleep**, now when reading my own text I realise, I guess the "When record enters view" -trigger wouldn't help to have all the cases in one automation, since I need one view per case. 

Long intro, now the question: can you think of an alternative way to have an integrated automation trigger for several different days, by some clever updates to the records?

Rgds,

Björn

[Dimitris_Goudis · Accepted solution]

Hey @0800-grizzly, 

I see the challenge you described, this is totally important when we need to optimize the usage of our automaitons.

Did you try to build a formula based on your conditions and trigger the automation based on this formula's results? 

This is what I would recommend you, build a formula with multiple IFs, this will return you Reminder 1, Reminder 2 and Reminder 3 otherwise it will be empty. You can also format the result to be shown a single select field. 

On your automation, you can add as a trigger the "When formula field is updated", in actions you have to add conditions like "if field value = Reminder 1 then send this email notification. 

Please feel free to post your feedback or dm me, what ever it works 🙂 

Thanks
@Dimitris_Goudis 

[0800-grizzly]

Brilliant @Dimitris_Goudis! Thank you very much, this seems to do the trick for me. Creating the formula was a PITA, but after that it works.

Rgds,

Björn