Automate with flows

A flow is a simple rule: when something happens, if it holds, do these. Each flow has one trigger (When), conditions that must all hold (If), and actions in order (Then). ContactRoll writes every flow as a sentence, so anyone can read what it does:

• When a customer replies and its subject contains "refund": reply with "We're on it", notify the administrators

Flows are under Settings, at https://app.contactroll.com/settings/flows.

When: what starts a flow

• A case arrives, a customer replies or you reply, or a case's status, owner or priority changes
• No reply from your team for a number of hours, or waiting on the customer for a number of days
• A response-time target is missed
• A case is snoozed or comes back from snooze, or the fix a case waits on ships
• A person is added, their status changes, or they have been in a status for a number of days
• Marketing consent is recorded or withdrawn, or a sign-up is confirmed
• Your app or Stripe reports something, such as a payment that failed, or a payment still failed after a number of days
• A deal is created, moves, closes, or sits in its stage for a number of days
• A task is overdue or completed

If: conditions

Conditions look at known fields: a case's priority, status, channel, owner, subject and product, who it waits on; a person's status, plan, address and company; a deal's stage, owner, amount and expected close; a task's owner, title and due date. You can compare text, dates and numbers, count hours since a message, and check whether it is inside or outside business hours. A deal amount names its currency, so "more than $5,000 (USD)" matches deals in US dollars.

Then: actions

Assign a case (to a person, or by turns among a few people), set a priority, status or owner, create a task, notify a person, the owner or the administrators, reply with a saved reply marked for flows, add someone to a sequence or take them out, escalate (priority up one step, and the administrators told), open a case from an event, or stop the flows after this one.

Each action is recorded on its run and on the record's timeline as "by flow {name} v{n}". Refunds, cancellations, approvals, publishing, deleting and consent changes stay with people.

Write a flow

1. On Flows, press New flow.
2. Choose When, add conditions under If, and add actions under Then. The sentence above the form updates as you go, and says what is still missing.
3. Press Create the flow. Saving later makes a new version.
4. Press Test against the last 30 days. ContactRoll runs the flow over the last 30 days without changing anything, and lists what it would have done to each record.
5. Switch it on: "On — it acts by itself".

A flow switches on after a test of its current version. Editing a flow that is on switches it off until the new version is tested. Flows run in the order on the Flows page, with Move earlier and Move later. Runs shows what each flow did, when and why.

Starter flows

Each product comes with seven starter flows, all off until switched on:

• An urgent case tells its owner
• A missed first-response target escalates
• A reply on a closed case reopens it
• Still there? after 7 days waiting on them
• Close after 14 days waiting on them
• A trial starts the onboarding sequence
• A cancellation starts the win-back sequence

Each says what it still needs. For example, "Still there?" needs its saved reply marked as one a flow may send, and the sequence starters need a sequence of that name.

Business hours and response-time targets

Business hours are set at Settings, Business hours, at https://app.contactroll.com/settings/hours: a range or Closed for each day, in your organization's time zone. They start as Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. "Business hours" in any flow means these hours.

On the same page, set the response-time target for every product: A first response within so many hours, and Each next reply within so many, each with when it becomes Due soon. A product can set its own on its page. Each case then shows a countdown chip, such as "Reply in 3 h 20 m", yellow when due soon and red with "Overdue 12 m" once missed.

Safeguards

A flow runs once for each event, so two flows that answer each other each run once. A flow that acts on one record more than ten times a day, or an organization's flows passing 500 actions an hour, pauses itself and tells the people who can switch it back on. Flow emails respect each member's notification switch, and a case gets at most one automated reply a day.

Who can do what

Everyone can see flows and their runs, and test one. Owners and Administrators write, order and switch flows on and off, and mark the saved replies a flow may send.