Automations

There are many scenarios with your Pool of research participants where automatic actions can save you time, based on criteria you define.

Types of automations & actions

The main two types of automations are determined by either study responses or Google Sheets:

The actions depend on the input type above, but the total list is as follows:

• Import Participants from a Google Sheet daily, weekly, or monthly
• Add Opt outs from a Google Sheet daily, weekly, or monthly
• Add Tags based on certain study/screener questions & answers
• Send Pool Email based on certain screener questions & answers

Steps to create an automation

Step 1: Input

For now, the only option here is Screener Responses. The other types of inputs on the immediate roadmap will be CSV uploads and Segment.

Step 2: Input Details

You can choose from any valid response, meaning any respondent with a working email, or choose to define certain questions & answers to act as the trigger.

Step 3: Triggers & Conditions

If you chose certain questions & answers above, define the exact questions and answers that should result in running this automation. Please note only closed-ended questions are eligible here – radio buttons, dropdowns, qualifying questions, etc. A cool future-proof aspect of automations is that you can rename screener questions or answers later, after you setup an automation, and they will still be included. Check out lots more detail about triggers & conditions here.

Search for questions

Type any words that appear in one or more of your screener questions into the search, and this will search across all your screeners for supported closed-ended questions.

Then use the check box to select one or more questions. That will determine what answers appear on the right. You can then select the answers on the right individually or using select all.

Action

This is what happens if someone meets the criteria you setup in the first few steps. Add tags is the first action available, and sending email is second. You can select one or more tags to be applied here. Please note you cannot have multiple actions on the same automation, but you can create another automation with the same triggers.

Add Tags

Based on the triggers, the automation will add tags to any qualified respondent

Send Pool Email

Same as above, but you choose from an existing email template that will be sent within a few minutes to any qualified respondent. Note you can enter the from, reply-to, and subject here and edit the template in another tab:

Testing

Before finalizing your automation, make sure everything is setup properly. Read all about testing your automation here.

Save & Close

You're all set! Please note you can leave this automation off while still saving it, and you can also lock the automation so that only account admins or the owner can edit the automation. You can also delete / rename from here, or lock the automation so only owner/admins can edit — see permission option below.

Automation Errors

There are a few things that can break an automation, but the most common is accidentally deleting an email template that was being used in your automation. The following are some more cases that can lead to errors or issues:

• Deleting an email template will deactivate an email automation
• Screener questions or answers can be deleted and the automation will not have an error but it may no longer apply to any Pool members. 
• Similarly, archiving a screener that was being used by an automation will not break the automation but it could also mean the automation no longer applies to anyone.