Automate steps with workflow rules

Before you start

A workflow rule does the same steps every time something happens, so nobody has to remember them. Each rule reads as one sentence: when something happens, if the record matches, do these steps. For example: when a deal moves to Won and is labelled Ultimate package, create a project from Ultimate onboarding and send Welcome.

Rules live in Settings → Workflows. Everyone in the workspace can read them and see what they did. Owners and admins add, change, switch on and off, reorder and delete them.

Add a recipe

Recipes are rules Scoped wrote. Choose Recipes in Settings → Workflows, pick one, fill in its blanks and add it.

• Package picks the kickoff: label each deal with the package it sold. When it’s won, the label decides which project template starts the work, and the client gets the welcome email. Add it once for each package.
• Estimate becomes the plan: when a client accepts a quote, the project starts from your project template, with its outcomes as milestones, its tasks, and cycles through the last outcome.
• Quote picks the project: each kind of quote starts its own kind of job. When a client accepts a quote made from one of your quote templates, the project starts from the project template you paired with it. Add it once for each quote template.
• Won work starts on Monday: every won deal starts the same way: one project template, on the team you choose, starting the next Monday, with its cycles and the welcome email.
• Quiet deal, keep following up: every new open deal starts the follow-up cadence you pick, so nobody has to remember to chase it.

A recipe that only adds records to your workspace is switched on when you add it. One that emails a client starts switched off, so you can check it first.

Make your own rule

1. In Settings → Workflows, choose New rule.
2. Pick what starts it: a deal changes stage or is created, a quote is accepted, a project is created, a milestone is completed, or a cycle closes.
3. Add conditions if it should run only sometimes: the stage, the deal’s labels, its value, its company, the template a quote or project came from, or whether it has a project yet. Every condition must match.
4. Add the steps, in order. The sentence under the form reads the rule back as you build it.
5. Save it, then switch it on. New rules start switched off.

Conditions are checked against the record as the change left it. A deal labelled after it was won doesn’t match its rule; use Run workflow on the deal to run it then.

What a rule can do

• Create a project from a template: the same as Review kickoff. The deal needs its agreed scope, and gets one project only.
• Create cycles from a cadence: cycles that pace the project, through its last outcome or a number you choose. Leave the cadence empty to use the project template’s own.
• Send a client email: Welcome, Job wrap-up or Inquiry reply. It goes out only while that email’s Send automatically switch is on in Settings → Client emails, and it waits on hold first, like every automatic email.
• Move to a stage: to an open stage only. Rules never mark a deal won or lost, and never move a deal that is.
• Start a follow-up cadence on the deal: its touches become follow-ups for the deal’s owner. See Templates for how a cadence runs.
• Add labels to the deal, and post a project update.

A rule never sends a quote or an invoice. What a rule does is recorded as the person whose change started it, via the rule, so the history reads Marisol Vega via Package picks the kickoff. A rule’s own changes never start other rules.

When a step skips

When a step can’t do its work, it skips and says why: the deal has no agreed scope yet, the welcome email isn’t switched on, the deal already has a project. The other steps still run. A run with a skipped step shows in Actions as Workflow needs a look, for whoever owns the record.

Fix what it says, then choose Run workflow in the record’s ⋯ menu. It lists the switched-on rules for that kind of record, says which ones match it now, and runs the one you pick.

Runs and Undo

Each rule’s Runs list shows every time it ran, on which record, what each step made or why it skipped, and who it ran for.

Undo takes back what a run made, as long as nobody has built on it. The project is archived and no longer belongs to the deal, the deal’s quotes and invoices it picked up go back to having no project, its cycles are removed, a client email that hasn’t gone out is stopped, and labels or a stage move are put back, and a follow-up cadence it started stops, with its open follow-ups archived. The deal can then be kicked off again. Once someone posts an update on the project, completes work, adds an invoice to it, plans issues into its cycles, or the email goes out, Undo says why it can’t.

What each plan includes

• Workflow rules are on every plan. On Free, two rules can be switched on at once; Plus and Pro have no limit.
• Steps follow your plan when they run: creating cycles needs cycles, and client emails need client emails, which are part of Plus and Pro. A step your plan doesn’t include skips and says so.
• A rule creates records like you do, so your plan’s record limit applies.

Use workflows with your assistant

A connected assistant, such as ChatGPT or Claude, can read your rules as sentences, so it can tell you what happens when you move a deal to Won, and can run a switched-on rule on a record now, the same as Run workflow. It needs access to the records the rule changes. It can’t add, change or switch rules; a person does that in Settings → Workflows.