Advanced Automations and Conditions
Build a custom automation by choosing your own trigger and action, then add conditions to control exactly when it runs.
When you start a new automation from Settings > Automations, the recipe picker has an Advanced option at the end. Choose it when none of the ready-made recipes fit and you want to decide the trigger, the action, and the exact circumstances yourself. Everything else about the form — the name, channel, timing, approval choice, message, and variables — works exactly as it does for a recipe.
Choosing a Trigger
The trigger is the event that makes the automation consider running. In advanced mode you pick it yourself from the same set the recipes use.
- Before a job is due: looks ahead to upcoming jobs and fires the set number of days before each one.
- When a job is completed: fires once a job is marked complete and the completion has been recorded, with an optional delay in days.
- When a job is marked complete or missed: fires the moment you mark a job on a worksheet or in the job completion popup, whether it went ahead or was missed. It does not wait for the worksheet to be submitted, and you can narrow it to just completed or just missed jobs. Also takes an optional delay in days.
- When an invoice is created: fires once for each new invoice, such as the ones a worksheet makes when it is submitted. An email from it carries the invoice as a PDF, an invoice you have already emailed is not sent again, and customers set to Don’t send invoices automatically are left out. Fully paid invoices are left out too, unless you untick Leave out invoices already paid in full.
- When an invoice is unpaid: fires once an invoice has gone unpaid for the number of days you set.
- When a customer pays: fires once each time a customer pays: on a worksheet once it is submitted, by hand, by card or a pay link, or by Direct Debit once GoCardless pays it out. Everything a customer pays on one worksheet counts as one payment, as does a tip paid with it. Payments recorded before the automation was set up, imported payments, and opening balances are left out.
- When a debt ages: fires when a customer's outstanding balance has been overdue for long enough.
- When a worksheet is assigned: fires when a worksheet is assigned to a team member.
Choosing an Action
The action is what happens when the trigger matches and any conditions pass.
- Send an email: emails the customer using your subject and message.
- Send a text (SMS): texts the customer your message.
- Notify the assigned user: messages the team member linked to the work rather than the customer.
- Charge via GoCardless: collects the outstanding balance by Direct Debit. This needs GoCardless connected and an active mandate for the customer.
Adding Conditions
Conditions are the heart of the advanced builder. Without any, the automation runs for every match the trigger finds. Adding conditions narrows it down so it only acts when the details line up. Use the Add condition button to add a rule, and remove any you do not want. When you set more than one, every rule has to pass for the automation to run.
Each rule has three parts:
- Field: the piece of information to check, grouped by what it belongs to — the Job (status, whether a reminder is required, balance, due date), the Customer (balance, email, mobile), the Invoice (status, sent date), the Payment (amount, payment method), the Worksheet (status), or the Marked job (marked as, missed reason, marked date).
- Condition: how to compare it — is, is not, greater than, at least, less than, at most, is present, is empty, is yes, is no, or is older than a number of days.
- Value: what to compare against, such as a status word, an amount, or a number of days. Some conditions like "is present", "is empty", "is yes", and "is no" do not need a value.
For example, a chase automation with a condition of "Customer balance is greater than 0" only messages people who actually owe you money, and "Job status is active" keeps a reminder to live jobs. Pick fields that belong to the same thing your trigger is about — job fields pair naturally with job triggers, invoice fields with the unpaid-invoice trigger, payment fields with the customer-pays trigger, and so on.
Everything Else Still Applies
An advanced automation is saved into the same list as any other and behaves identically once live. It respects the automatic-or-approval choice, only looks forward from when it was created, and can be paused, edited, or deleted from the list at any time.
Related articles
- Creating an Automation: the recipe-based flow and the shared fields explained in full.
- Automations: where your automations are listed and how the engine decides when to run them.
- Automation Approvals: handling actions that wait for your approval before they run.