Contents
Creating a new workflow in Neon CRM consists of three main steps:
- Set the trigger that will cause the workflow to start running;
- Choose the targets for your workflow - which accounts or records will be affected?
- Determine the resultant action(s) - what will happen to the targets when the workflow is triggered?
To get started, go to your main Workflows page and click New Workflow.
You can then give your Workflow a name and a short description explaining what it does.
Add a Trigger
Next, specify what will trigger your workflow to start running.
Your options fall into three main categories:
Event Triggers
An Event is the creation of a single record in your database: an account, a donation, a pledge, an event registration, a membership, a volunteer application, a fundraising page, or a recurring donation schedule.
Selecting one of these will cause your Workflow to start running as soon as the specified event is successfully completed.
Date Triggers
This type of trigger can be either of the following:
- One of a selection of account dates, such as the constituent's birthday, their membership expiration date or the date a pledge is due; or
- The start of an event, campaign or volunteer project, the close date set for event registrations, or a fixed date on the calendar.
With this type of trigger, you will also be required to specify the relation of your trigger date to the date specified: whether it should be the same day, or some number of days before or afterward.
Conditional Triggers
This type of trigger will run periodic searches of your database to find newly qualified accounts to add to your Workflow. With this type of trigger, you are essentially choosing the target accounts in this first step; the "Targets" step will be fixed once you set your condition and you'll be skipped directly to Step 3. See below for an example.
Select Target Group
In this step, you will choose the target group of records that will be affected by your new Workflow.
You may be offered an option to add all records in your Trigger category to your Workflow. Or, you can filter the list of qualifying records by a select list of criteria.
Specify your criteria (if any) and click Select Targets.
Add Action
Now, you will need to add at least one Action to the Workflow. This will tell your Workflow what to do when the trigger is activated.
The list of available actions may vary depending on the type of trigger and/or target group you've chosen. Choose the action that fits what you'd like to happen when the workflow is triggered.
In this case, we've chosen to send a personal thank you email from the ED for any donation of $100 or more, to be sent in addition to the standard acknowledgment.
Once you've added at least one Action to your Workflow, you will then be able to test, save and activate it.
Save, Test, and Activate
Once your workflow is saved, you can now click the Settings button to add Start and End Dates for the workflow to run.
You can test your Workflow before you activate it by clicking the Test Workflow button at the top of the Workflow detail page.
Note: When using the Test Workflow feature, it will skip time delays in order to show the eventual functionality.
You will then be asked to specify the account on which you wish to test this workflow. We recommend that you use a designated testing account for this purpose.
If necessary, you will also be asked to choose the specific record on the account that will be used as the trigger and/or target for this test.
Notice that the record that I've selected to test this "$100+ Donation" Workflow does not fit the set requirements. That's okay; the Workflow will be immediately triggered and all actions executed regardless of target criteria or time delays. You do not have to add new records to your system just for the purpose of testing your Workflows.
Once you are satisfied that your Workflow is running as intended, you can toggle the status of the Workflow to Active to make it live.