Automations

An automation has three parts: a trigger (what starts it), conditions (which leads it applies to) and actions (what NextCRM does). For example: when a lead is created from a web form and the country is Germany, assign it round robin to the DACH team and create a call task.

Open Automations in the sidebar (section Growth & team, open Automations). Workspace Admins and Sales Managers can create, change, test and turn on automations.

Start from a template or a Lora suggestion

Under Templates you find ready-made automations:

• Round-robin new form leads - every new form lead gets an owner, your team takes turns.
• Welcome email + task - new form and booking leads get a welcome email; the owner gets a call task.
• Re-engage after 14 days of no activity - a task and a notification for the owner.
• Renewal reminder - a task 30 days before a customer's renewal date.

Lora suggestions at the top of the page look at your workspace, for example "62% of your form leads were not contacted within 24 hours", and offer the matching template. Every template and suggestion is created as a draft that is switched off - review it, test it and turn it on yourself.

Build an automation

The editor shows the automation as a Flow from top to bottom: When · Trigger, then Only if · Conditions, then the actions Then (1), Then (2) and so on. Click Add action at the end of the flow to add an action, or the + between two actions to insert one at that position.

1. Click New automation and enter a name.
2. Trigger - under What should start it?, choose what starts it:
   • a lead is created (filter by source: by hand, web form, booking page, field app, API, Lora, File import (CSV/Excel) - imported leads only start it when File import (CSV/Excel) is selected; with no source selected, every source except file imports starts it),
   • a lead changes stage (optionally a specific funnel and stage), a lead is assigned, a form is submitted,
   • the lead sends a message (email, SMS, WhatsApp, social), a call is logged, a task is completed or becomes overdue, a meeting is booked,
   • a quote is accepted or declined, a customer gives a low NPS score (0-6),
   • dates: a renewal is coming up in N days, a lead had no activity for N days.
3. Conditions (optional) - compare lead fields: funnel, stage, source, tags, deal value, country, owner, outcome, email, phone, name, company or a custom field. Conditions in a group combine with AND or OR; several groups combine with AND or OR as well.
4. Actions - up to 10, run in order from top to bottom (change the order with the arrow buttons):
   • Assign owner - a specific member, round robin (members take turns; members who left are skipped) or fewest open leads,
   • Move to stage, Add tag, Remove tag, Create task, Add a note,
   • Send email / SMS / WhatsApp - from the lead owner's mailbox or number setup; opted-out leads are never contacted,
   • Start a sequence (Follow-up sequences),
   • Notify a team member - an in-app notification,
   • Send a webhook - the event "automation.webhook" to your endpoints (API & Webhooks),
   • Ask Lora - summarize or qualify the lead; uses AI credits and only adds a suggestion to the timeline.
5. Click Save as draft.

Test before you turn it on

Under Test run pick a lead and click Run test. NextCRM checks the conditions and shows what every action would do - who round robin would pick, which stage, which address a message would go to and whether the lead unsubscribed. Nothing is changed and nothing is sent.

Then turn the automation On. It runs within about a minute after each matching event.

Execution log

Execution log lists every run with the lead, the result (Success, Partly failed, Failed, Skipped, Test) and one line per action, including error messages. Runs are kept for 90 days. "Skipped" runs explain why - for example the conditions did not match or loop protection stepped in.

Safety rules

• Loop protection: an automation never starts itself again through its own actions, chains of automations stop after three levels, and each automation runs at most a set number of times per lead and hour (default 3, under Safety).
• Who acts: an automation acts on behalf of the workspace with the role of the person who turned it on. If that person leaves the workspace or loses the role, the automation turns itself off and the Workspace Admins are notified. On the lead's timeline its changes appear as "Automation <name>".
• Same rules as the app: actions use the same checks as a click in NextCRM - plan limits, the Trash (leads in the Trash never trigger actions), unsubscribes and role rules.
• Versions: every save creates a new version; the list shows who changed it and when. Turning automations on and off is recorded in the audit log.
• Plan: automations need an active subscription; SMS and WhatsApp actions need those features in your plan.
• Daily limit for SMS and WhatsApp: all automations of a workspace together send at most 200 SMS and 200 WhatsApp messages per day. Further send actions that day are skipped and the execution log shows "the workspace reached today's limit for this channel". Follow-up sequences have their own limits (Follow-up sequences).
• Maintenance: during platform maintenance automations wait. Events are kept and processed afterwards.

Tip: Lora can help too: "Which automations do we have?", "Create the round-robin template as a draft", "Turn off the renewal reminder" or "Why did the welcome automation fail for Acme?". For changes, Lora prepares a card and only carries it out after you click Approve.