Overview

To increase the efficiency of your team working through Sales Opportunity Workflows, you may wish to add automation to your CiviPlus processes.

CiviRules is an automation tool, accessible to administrators, that allows the setting up of tasks or actions that the system will run automatically, when triggered by specific conditions.

This is very useful for the automation of tasks that should always happen under certain conditions.

CiviRules have three components:

Trigger
Condition(s)
Action(s)

Examples

Examples will help to illustrate how CiviRules could be useful for your workflows.

Example 1

I would like a contact who is the subject of a 'Prospecting' Case Type record to be added to a group called 'Warm Leads' when a staff member adds the 'Introduction Call Held' activity (assigned to the contact) to the case record.

Trigger: Case Activity is Added
- Trigger for: Activity Assignees
Conditions:
- Activity Type is 'Introduction Call Held'
- Case Type is Prospecting
Action: Add contact to Group: Warm Leads

Example 2

I would like to assign a specific staff member the role of Case Manager every time a 'Prospecting' Case Type record is created.

Trigger: Case Created
Condition: Case type is Prospecting
Action: Assign Role: Case Manager *Name of staff member*

Example 3

When a Prospecting Case Type record has the Status 'Request Company Details', I would like a particular message template to be sent to the contact, with a link to a webform.

Trigger: Case Status is 'Request Company Details'
Condition: Case Type is Prospecting
Action: Send email to .... pick template

How to build a CiviRule

Here are the steps required to create a CiviRule for your Sales Opportunity workflow:

Step 1

Navigate to Administer --> CiviRules --> Manage Rules
Select Add Rule

Step 2

Populate the Rule Details:

Name: Internal title of the rule
Description: A brief internal description of the rule
CiviRule Tag(s): Rules can be categorised and sorted using tags
Helptext with purpose of rule: Further internal details of the rule
Enabled: Set whether the rule is active or inactive whilst being created
- We recommend unticking this until you are ready to test the completed rule

Step 3

Create the Trigger:

Select a trigger for the rule from the drop-down menu and select Next
- Choosing some triggers will take you to a secondary screen to allow you to add further detail to the trigger

Step 4

Conditions are often essential for narrowing down the triggering of the rule to the desired specific use case.

For instance, in Example 1, if no condition was used, the rule would trigger for every activity type and case type in the system.

Create the Condition(s):

Select Add Condition
(The options available for conditions will vary depending on the initial trigger chosen)
Once a condition is chosen, there is usually a further details screen where the specific options can be selected

Multiple conditions can be added to one CiviRule. This is particularly useful if your CiviPlus site has multiple workstreams, and you need to be very specific in your rules.

Step 5

Create the Action(s):

Select Add Action
Select an action from the drop-down menu
- There will be a follow-up secondary screen too in most cases, to provide further details
Add a delay if applicable
- Here you can add a time period by which to delay the action after the rule has been triggered.This can be useful to:
  - Introduce a gap between trigger and action (if other actions need to happen in this time)
  - Standardise when actions occur (e.g. invoices always go out at a set time on a set day)
  - Use rules to create future events (e.g create an activity, but 1 week in the future)

Useful Triggers for Sales Opportunity Workflows

Trigger	Uses
Case activity Date is reached	Good for triggering alerts (internally or externally) that an activity is (or will soon be) overdue
Case activity is added	Useful for linking rules to other areas of the system
Case is changed	Useful for creating automation around caseflow processes
Tag is added	This can be used to allow users to use tags as a shortcut to trigger rules or changes

Useful Actions for Sales Opportunity Workflows

Action	Uses
Add Contact to a group	Really useful for helping maintain mailing lists, or highlighting and reviewing contacts that have met certain conditions
Add Tag to contact	Ideal for rules that are meant to help flagging to users (e.g. staff), contacts that have met certain conditions (e.g. had a meeting)
Add (Case) Activity to a contact	Great for creating a more visible, easier to report on record on the contact of a specific thing happening
Send Email	The most commonly used action
Send Email to related contact	Useful for alerts and often case processes
Set Custom field on contact	Can be used to help keep data on contacts up to date based on their other interactions in the system
Show a message to CiviCRM Users	Good for internal (staff-facing) alerts for users