Automations

Start safely

An automation is a recipe: when something happens — a form comes in, a contract gets signed, or an invoice is paid — follow your steps in order. Those steps might send a tracked client message, request something in the client portal, tag the client for follow-up, wait a couple of days, add a task, move the project's stage, or send a questionnaire.

Start with a Library recipe or a blank draft. Drafts never run. Use Preview run to resolve real project context and see which steps would run, wait, or skip without sending or changing anything. Save & activate checks provider setup and referenced forms, stages, booking pages, and templates before new events can start the automation.

Emails and task names can use fill-in-the-blank fields such as {{client_name}}, {{project_name}}, and {{event_date}}.

Task steps can also include details, a low-to-urgent priority, a due-day offset, and an optional current teammate. Cygnetree creates one task per run step even if durable execution has to retry.

Add decisions and timing

Use Check a condition when a workflow should continue only for matching client or project information. A failed check can stop the run or skip just the next step.

Wait a while can pause for a fixed duration or until a chosen number of days before or after the project's event date. Waits are durable, so a deployment does not restart the countdown.

Client-directed automation messages are saved in the client portal first. If the person has an email address, Cygnetree also queues a notification through your selected workspace Gmail, Outlook, or SMTP profile. A retry of the same run and step does not create another message.

Request something from client creates a due item in that project's client portal and queues a notification when the client has email enabled. Use it for uploads, decisions, missing details, or any other tracked follow-up. Add a client tag quietly updates the CRM record for later filters and conditions. Assign a project teammate grants viewer or contributor access and can label the person's role on that project. Retrying any of these actions is safe: requests, tags, and assignments are not duplicated.

Choose delivery hours

Workspace owners can open Settings → Communication defaults → Workspace default and enable an automation delivery window. Choose a timezone, local start and end times, and any combination of days.

Client messages, client requests, and questionnaires wait durably until the next allowed opening. Date-relative triggers and waits use the same workspace timezone, including daylight-saving changes. Internal Notify me and CRM-only tag steps remain immediate. The window is off by default, so enabling it is a deliberate workspace choice.

Approve or cancel a run

Wait for approval pauses the run and places Approve and Decline controls in run history. The request expires after the number of days you choose. You can also cancel any running or approval-waiting run. These controls affect that run only; use Save as draft to stop an automation from receiving new triggers.

Why did this happen?

Every run is listed under Run history with a plain sentence for what started it, the captured definition version, affected project and client links, and a timestamped log of each step. Editing or deleting an automation does not change an in-progress run's captured steps or remove its history.

Failed runs can be retried with the automation's current definition. Cancelled, declined, expired, skipped, and condition-stopped paths remain visible so a quiet automation is still explainable.