Creating an Automation
Pick a ready-made recipe, then set the business, channel, timing, approval, and message for a new automation.
From Settings > Automations, the New automation button opens a popup that walks you through it in two steps: first you choose what to automate, then you fill in the details.
Step 1: Choose What to Automate
The first screen shows a set of ready-made recipes. Picking one fills in sensible defaults — the trigger, a suitable channel, a starting message, and a timing that makes sense for that job — so you only need to adjust the wording and a few numbers.
- Remind a customer before a job is due: emails or texts the customer a set number of days ahead of their appointment. Starts at 7 days before, at 9am.
- Message a customer when a job is completed: sends a thank-you or follow-up once you mark the job complete.
- Chase an unpaid invoice: reminds a customer once an invoice has been unpaid for a number of days. Set to wait for your approval by default.
- Chase an aged debt: messages a customer when their outstanding balance is older than a number of days. Also waits for your approval.
- Charge a GoCardless customer when a job is completed: collects what the customer owes through GoCardless once the job is done. Needs GoCardless connected and waits for your approval.
- Notify a user when a worksheet is assigned to them: emails the team member a worksheet has just been assigned to.
There is also an Advanced option if none of the recipes fit and you want to build the automation from scratch. That path is covered in its own article.
Step 2: Fill in the Details
After you pick a recipe, the form opens with everything pre-filled. Work through it top to bottom and change what you need.
- Business: when your account has more than one business, a Business tab appears while creating so you can choose which one this automation belongs to. Choose carefully — the business is locked in once the automation is created and cannot be moved later.
- Name: a label for your own reference, such as "7-day job reminder". This is what you will see in the list.
- Send via: how the message goes out. Alongside Email and SMS you can pick "All available" to send both, or a "first available" option that tries one channel and falls back to the other depending on the contact details you hold for the customer.
- Timing: reminders before a job ask how many days ahead to send; chasing automations ask how many days after the invoice or debt to act. You can also set an optional time of day so messages go out at a tidy hour rather than whenever the check happens to run.
- When this triggers: choose "Run automatically" to send as soon as it matches, or "Require my approval first" to hold it in the approvals list until you accept it.
- Email subject: shown when the automation can send email. This is the subject line the customer sees.
- Message: the body of the email or text. Write it as you would to the customer.
Personalising the Message
Below the message you will see a row of insertable variables. Click one to drop it into the message, and Work Planner swaps it for the real value when it sends. For example {first_name} becomes the customer's first name and {due_date} becomes the job date.
- Customer details: first name, last name, full name, and company.
- Job details: service name, job reference, due date, and next due date.
- Money: the customer's balance and the amount owed.
- Your business: your business name, handy for signing off.
Charges Are a Little Different
The GoCardless charge recipe has no message channel because it collects money rather than sending a message. Instead of a subject and body you set a Payment description, which is what shows against the payment. The customer must have an active Direct Debit mandate set up through GoCardless — if they do not, the charge is quietly skipped rather than failing.
Saving
Give the automation a name before saving, or you will be prompted for one. Once saved it appears in the list straight away, ready to run. Remember it only looks forward from the moment you create it, so it will not act on jobs or invoices that already matched in the past.
Related articles
- Automations: the list screen where your saved automations live, and how the engine runs them.
- Advanced Automations and Conditions: build a custom automation and narrow exactly when it fires.
- Automation Approvals: what happens to automations set to require your approval.
- Email Settings: how your emails are sent and branded.
- SMS Settings: what you need in place for text messages to send.