Overview
What is a workflow? How is it different than a standard campaign mailing?
An email workflow is series of automated emails that will be sent — or not — based on a person's behavior or criteria. With workflows, you can trigger emails or events based on your recipients' actions. This allows you to send the right message to the right person at the right time.
Workflows can be set up in two ways; they can be part of a campaign or a published workflow can be added to an existing campaign. In either case, administrator access is required for the initial setup.
Most workflows are based on action triggers, such as clicking on a link or submitting a form. In these cases, emails in the workflow are triggered automatically when your contact clicks on a previously-sent email, submits a form, or takes another specified action within the workflow. Action-triggered workflows calculate the send time of each email based on the send time of the previous email in the series. Workflows use your operating system time when calculating times. So you don't need to do anything to schedule them!
FYI: Zift services processes workflows every three hours. Any steps less than three hours between steps will have adverse results and is not recommended.
An example of a simple, action-triggered workflow:
Some workflows are event-based. In these cases, workflow mailings are delivered at specific times based on an event - the week before, the day before, etc.
An example of a simple, event-based workflow:
These are just examples. Your workflow will vary in steps, conditions, and triggers, depending on the nature of the workflow. To see the steps of your particular workflow — and the various scenarios that can trigger the next mailing to be sent — go to the Steps page of your workflow.
Additional Information
- About Campaign Workflows
- How to Access the Workflow Wizard
- How to Change the Workflow Settings
- How to Edit Workflow Steps
- How to Personalize a Workflow
- How to Add Workflow Participants
- How to Activate a Workflow