Creating Automation Rules

Creating Automation Rules

1. Click to create a new rule.
2. Select an automation template or select "Empty automation rule" if you want to start from scratch.
3. Enter a name for the rule.

4. Click Create.

• If you have chosen "Empty automation rules" then you will be first prompted to configure the rule settings before the rule will be created.
• If you have chosen an automation template then the rule will be created with default settings and you will see the diagram of the chosen rule:

5. The exclamation marks show which activities are invalid now and need additional data. Click each to open its activity and fix it.

Adding Triggers

Click  next to Add new trigger to create a trigger. Please refer to the Creating Triggers section for information about how to create triggers.
You can create as many triggers as needed. In case of multiple triggers, the automation will start when any trigger activates.

Adding Activities

Click  below a trigger or an activity to add an activity to your workflow. Please refer to the Creating Activities section for information about how to work create activities.

Configuring Rule Settings

1. Click Settings to change rule settings.
2. If needed change the name of the rule.

3. Select Enabled if you want to activate the rule. Please note that you can not activate an empty rule with no actions. You need to first add at least one action.

4. Select the Primary object type for your rule. The primary object type is the object type that will be used in your triggers (will be triggering your rule). You can change it only if the rule does not yet have any triggers or actions.

5. ID of a rule is its unique number. ID is automatically assigned to a rule when it is saved for the first time. You cannot change it.
6. Select an automation type from the Type list. The following automation types are available now:

• Form rules - used for rules assigned to web site forms. For example, register for newsletter, or webinar forms.
• Drip rules - used for Drip Marketing rules. For example, rules to send a series of emails to a lead.
• Page rules - used for web page visits. For example, a rule that starts when a person opens a page on your web site.
• Other - can be used for all other rules.

Use the How many automations to run for one object at the same time setting to specify how many of this automation you want to allow to be executed simultaneously for the same object:

Usually you would want this to be One: do not start new if one is running already, for example, to prevent a lead raised for the same person again or to prevent drip emails to be started again when the person visits the same page. In some cases, however, you need the All started setting. For example, this setting is usually selected in an automation started by a web form as the form user expects the same actions to happen again when, for instance, a button is clicked several times.

You can use One:cancel previous automations, for example, when using forms where you want to reactivate an automation for a returning site visitor.

8. Click OK when you have finished editing your rule.

Testing Automations

Before enabling an automation, you should test it to verify if all actions perform correctly. Please note that only automation rules with "Primary object type" set to "person" can be tested and some reasonable limitations apply in testing, for example, the Wait action is skipped in tests; all emails are sent to the current user of MA, etc.

1. Click TEST. (If the TEST button is not enabled, click SAVE first to store all your changes before testing those.)
2. The Automation Test Context dialog will appear where you can adjust the context in which the test run will perform. Each user of Vine MA has own context that includes the triggering person, its employer, and membership in email lists. All the changes you do in your context will be saved automatically after the test run.

3. Click Run to execute the test. The Log tab will show how all its steps performed:

4. Select Show included objects if you want to see Vine objects used in the rule.

Please note that the name field in the "included objects" log is used to identify an object in this automation only and should not to be confused with the name of an object in the database.

For example:

• For Include object to automation action you specify the automation name for an object

• For Send Email action: "SendEmailEvent" text followed by the step number of the action in the whole automation is used as the automation name of a created event.

• For Add Event action: the name of the action is used as the automation name of a created event.

• For Raise Lead action: "Raise Lead" is used as the automation name of a created lead.

In addition, the following automation names are used for objects added in three first steps of a test run:

• "Trigger" name used for an object triggering an automation. (For test runs, the current user of MA is normally used as a triggering person.)

  <VY_PERSON id="412329929" name="trigger"/>

• An automation object with a name ""TEST_TRIGGER" is always created in test automations to identify those. It uses the same "trigger" object as in step one.

  <VY_PERSON id="412329929" name="TEST_TRIGGER"/> - .

• "trigger_connected" is an event normally created in automation runs activated by a "Connection Added" or "Registered to Event" triggers. It is also created in test runs and connected to the triggering person, but this event is not saved in the database in a test run.

  <VY_EVENT id="0" name="trigger_connected"/>

5. Click Close to end testing.