Campaign Automation: Series, Actions, and Timers

When building a Campaign Automation, once a participant (Lead or Contact in the Campaign Automation) completes a trigger, you will want to take action, whether it is sending an email to the participant, assigning the participant to a different user, notifying users, etc. All of this can happen within a Series. 

Goals

• Learn when to place actions in a Series vs when to add them directly to the Canvas.
• Learn about the properties of a Series
• Learn how to use Actions and Timers with a Series

Using a Series vs Using Standalone Actions & Timers

Prior to ClickDimensions version 8.7.0, all actions and timers had to be placed within Series. This is no longer the case in more recent releases, but there are two scenarios where it can be beneficial to use a Series: 

1. Organization: Series allow multiple sequential actions or timers that may share a similar purpose to be grouped together. This can make the Campaign Automation canvas less cluttered and the Campaign Automation layout easier to read if you are creating a more complex Campaign Automation.
2. Skip Unnecessary Steps: Series have a property that allows the contents of the series to be skipped if the positive path criteria for a subsequent trigger is achieved. This could help avoid sending a participant unnecessary emails or could expedite their progress through the Campaign Automation.
   
   For example, if a series contains a Send Email Action and a 1 week Wait Timer, and is then followed by an Email Interaction Trigger that checks if the email sent in the series was opened, the participant could be progressed immediately once they open the email rather than opening it than waiting for the remainder of the 1 week Wait Timer before progressing. 
   
   If a series was not used in this scenario and the Send Email Action and 1 week Wait Timer were placed directly on the Canvas, the participant will always have to wait the full week before progressing no matter how early they open the email.

Series Properties

When you click on a series, the properties panel will appear on the right.

Display Name: This is the name of the series. There is a name given by default, however it is recommended to change the display name to anything you like. It is helpful to change the name of the series to something that reflects what will happen within the series or the conditions that were met in order for a participant to enter the series. For example, if there is a series following a Submitted Form trigger and it contains a follow-up email, the name of the series could be "Send Follow-Up Email". If there is a series following an Email Interaction trigger, and the series will contain actions for participants that open the email, the name could be "Opened Email". You can name the series anything you like, but it will be helpful to make it recognizable so that in the future you know why the series is there. Series will end when: This field is for determining when a participant will exit the series and move past the series. The options are:

• It is completed: This means the participant will run through the entire series.
• If a trigger is achieved: This option applies when the series is connected to a following trigger. If the participant completes whatever the trigger is checking for (i.e. submitting a specific form, the participant was added to a list, etc..), the participant will then leave the series, and continue in the Campaign Automation.

Add Actions and Timers: This button will take you into the series. Within the series you can add actions and timers. You can also enter the series by double clicking on the series node on the canvas.

Adding and Connecting Actions and Timers

To add an action or timer to the series, drag the action/timer from the side bar and drop it onto the canvas. If you want actions and timers to occur in sequential order, drag and drop the actions/timers and connect them by clicking on the green dot on the right side of an action/timer and dragging to the green dot on the left side of the next action/timer.

If you want the actions/timers to run simultaneously (or not in sequential order), you do not need to connect the actions and timers to each other. When a participant enters the series, they will all start to run at the same time.

You can also have multiple rows of connected actions and timers. Keep in mind that any action that is listed first in a connected row, will start as soon as the participant enters the series.

Nodes can also be copied and pasted by using the CTRL+C and CTRL+V commands respectively. Please be aware of the following limitations and restrictions when copying and pasting nodes when using series:

• Nodes cannot be copied from a Series node into the main canvas.
• Nodes cannot be copied and pasted from one Series node to another Series node.
• Nodes from the main canvas can be copied/pasted or dragged and dropped into a Series node.

Editing Actions and Timers

To edit the properties of actions and timers, click on the node you want to edit. The sidebar will change to the action/timer's properties. See the articles listed below to learn more about a specific action or timer. Actions:

• Send Email
• Add to List
• Remove from List
• Assign Owner
• Notify User
• Create Task Activity
• Workflow
• Notify Team
• Campaign Response
• Send SMS

Timers:

• Wait Timer
• Date Timer

Save the Series of Actions and Timers

When you click the Save button in the top left corner of the builder window for Edit Series, this will save not only the series you've just created or edited, but it will save the entire Campaign Automation.

Once you have exited the Series and returned to the Campaign Automation canvas, you will see that the Series now displays a number indicating how many Actions are included within it.