6. Automation
This chapter explains the machinery that makes modules built at different times behave like one product. Read 6.1 even if you never build an automation — it explains why things you did not set up nevertheless happen.
6.1 The event bus
Whenever something remarkable happens, the product announces it once, on a single internal channel. That announcement reaches three listeners at the same time:
- your external webhooks — the outside world finds out
- the automation engine — your rules run
- lead scoring — points move
The listeners cannot block each other and cannot block the thing that happened. If your webhook endpoint is down, the deal still gets won.
Twenty events exist today:
contact.created · contact.updated · invitation.accepted · invitation.expired ·
alert.raised · deal.stage_changed · deal.won · deal.lost · campaign.sent ·
feedback.submitted · approval.decided · score.crossed · invoice.sent ·
invoice.paid · quote.accepted · quote.declined · order.placed ·
product.interest · course.completed · form.submitted
Why this matters practically: it is the same list everywhere. Anything on it can trigger an automation, can be sent to an external system, and can move a score. You do not have to learn which features support automation — they all do, because they all speak through the same channel.
6.2 Automations
Settings → Automations. A rule has three parts.
Trigger — one of the twenty events above.
Conditions — optional tests on the event's data. Equals, not equals, contains,
greater than, less than, exists. For example: deal.won where value is greater than
5000.
Actions — run in order when the conditions pass. Five exist:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
add_tag |
Tags the contact |
create_reminder |
Creates a dated follow-up |
notify |
In-app notification to your team |
send_email |
Sends through the logged pipeline, unsubscribe footer added automatically |
enroll_sequence |
Puts the contact into a drip sequence |
Every run is recorded with the result of each action, so when something did not happen you can find out why instead of guessing.
The action list is a fixed whitelist on purpose. Automations parameterise behaviour; they never execute arbitrary code. That is a security decision, and it is the reason this can be a no-code feature without being a hole in your organisation.
Rules worth stealing
deal.won→ tagcustomer, remind me in 30 daysform.submitted→ enrol in the welcome sequencefeedback.submittedwith rating less than 3 → notify the team, remind me tomorrowinvoice.paid→ send a thank-you, tagpaidproduct.interest→ notify the account ownercourse.completed→ congratulations email, enrol in the alumni sequence
6.3 Lead scoring
Settings → Scoring. Behaviour becomes points.
Define a rule per event with a delta: email clicked +5, feedback submitted +10, email bounced −5. Optionally a cooldown, so an event that can repeat rapidly — an open — counts once a day rather than forty times.
Two thresholds ship as standard: Warm at 30, Hot at 60.
Two design details make this more useful than the usual implementation.
It is a ledger, not a number. Every change is an entry with a reason. When someone is Hot you can see what made them Hot, rather than trusting a figure.
Crossing a threshold is itself an event. The scoring engine does not decide what to
do about it. It announces score.crossed, and your automations decide — notify the
owner, enrol in a sales sequence, tag them. This keeps the mechanism honest: scoring
measures, automations act.
There is a one-click button that seeds a standard set of rules and thresholds, which is the sane way to start.
Email tracking feeds scoring directly: opens, clicks and bounces move the number without any wiring on your part.
6.4 Notifications
The bell in the top bar. Notifications can be aimed at one person or broadcast to owners and admins, and they arrive in real time.
They are sent by the Telegram inbox, incoming data connectors, approvals, feedback,
invoices, bookings, courses, and by the notify automation action.
They are deliberately fire-and-forget: a notification that fails to deliver never breaks the thing that produced it.
6.5 How this connects to attention
Automation is where the two halves of chapter 3 stop being a dashboard widget and start being a system.
You can automate your way out of neglect: a rule that reminds you thirty days after a won deal, a sequence that keeps a relationship warm without you remembering.
You can also automate your way straight into crowding, and it is easier. Three rules that each seemed reasonable on their own — welcome sequence, campaign, feedback request — can produce five touchpoints in a fortnight for the same person, which is exactly the red threshold.
The product will tell you when that happens. It cannot stop you setting it up.