Triggers and Actions — the Vocabulary

Once you understand the overall shape of the automation engine, the next step is learning the vocabulary: which triggers exist, which actions are available, and which combinations are worth your time. This article is a reference, but it's an opinionated reference — there are dozens of triggers, but only a handful you'll actually use, and the same is true for actions.

When you'd use this

• You're sketching out an automation idea and want to know whether the trigger you have in mind exists.
• You're trying to figure out why an automation isn't firing, and you suspect you picked the wrong trigger.
• You're trying to decide whether to use a status-change trigger or a time-based one for a recurring task.
• You want a quick refresher on what each trigger and action category covers.

Triggers — the events that start an automation

Triggers fall into a few broad families. The exact list available depends on which features you have turned on, but the categories are stable.

Lifecycle triggers (the workhorses)

These fire when something changes about a record. They're the triggers you'll reach for most often.

• Account created / updated — a new customer is added or their record changes. Useful for welcome emails and internal notifications.
• Job created — a new job lands in the system. Useful for routing, dispatcher notifications, customer confirmations.
• Job status changed — probably the trigger you'll use the most. Different status transitions call for different messages: a move to Scheduled triggers a confirmation; In Progress notifies the customer the tech is on the way; Complete kicks off a follow-up.
• Invoice created — a new invoice is generated. Often the starting point for the auto-send-invoice flow.
• Invoice closed / locked — the invoice is finalized. Triggers things like a QuickBooks sync and the customer-facing email.
• Payment received — money came in. Useful for thank-you messages, internal alerts on big payments, and clearing collection flags.
• Agreement renewed / expired — service-agreement lifecycle. Useful for renewal outreach before a contract expires.

Time-based triggers

These fire on a schedule, not on a record change. They're how you build "do something every morning" automations.

• Schedule tick — a recurring time (every day at 9 AM, every Monday morning, every first of the month). The classic use is a daily past-due check: every morning at 8 AM, look for invoices that just crossed 7 days overdue overnight.
• Time-since trigger — fires when a record reaches a certain age ("invoice has been unpaid for 14 days"). The clean way to build past-due cadences.
• Time-before trigger — fires a fixed time before a future event ("24 hours before the appointment"). The standard way to send appointment reminders.

External triggers

Less common but powerful when you need them.

• Email received — an inbound email arrives. Useful for routing customer replies onto the right account automatically.
• SMS received — an inbound text. Often paired with an auto-acknowledgement.
• Form submitted — a public form (estimate request, contact form) is filled out. Triggers internal notifications and starts the new-lead workflow.

Trigger conditions — narrowing the firing

Almost every trigger supports conditions. A trigger without a condition fires every time; a trigger with conditions fires only when the situation matches.

Common condition patterns:

• "Trigger only when status is X" (because most lifecycle triggers fire on any status change).
• "Trigger only for jobs of type Y" (different industries need different automations).
• "Trigger only when amount is greater than N" (high-value invoices warrant different handling than $50 ones).
• "Trigger only for accounts in Z tag/category" (segmenting your customer base).

Use conditions liberally. Most "the automation is firing too often" complaints come from missing conditions.

Actions — what the automation does

Actions are simpler — there are fewer of them, and most automations use one or two. Multiple actions on a single rule run in order.

Communication actions

• Send email (templated) — by far the most-used action. The template lives in the email template area, with merge tokens like {accountname}, {invoicenum}, {servicedate}. Build the template once and reuse it from any rule.
• Send SMS — short messages. Good for "tech is on the way" or "your appointment is in 24 hours." Bad for long content — SMS is for quick nudges.
• Create notification — an in-app notification for a staff user or a role. Useful when dispatch needs to know something but the customer doesn't.

Record actions

• Change status — bump a record from one status to another. Often used to advance jobs through a workflow without a human click.
• Create task — add a follow-up to someone's task list. Useful for "make sure to call this customer back."
• Create invoice — automatically generate an invoice from a closed job, agreement renewal, etc.
• Update field — set a specific field on a record (e.g., flag a customer as a follow-up candidate, set a priority).

Composite actions

• Run another automation — chain rules together. Use sparingly; chains are hard to debug.
• Wait / delay — pause the workflow for a specified time before continuing. Useful for "send follow-up 3 days after job complete" without needing a separate time-based rule.

Common business needs and how to build them

Most automation ideas translate into one of a small number of trigger-and-action combinations. Some examples:

Most businesses run six to ten automations. If you find yourself with thirty, you've probably over-automated — consolidate where you can.

Common mistakes

• Picking too-broad a trigger. "Job status changed" without a condition fires on every status change to every job. You probably wanted "Job status changed to Complete." Narrow scope is your friend.
• Using time-based triggers when a lifecycle trigger would do. If you want something to happen when an invoice closes, use the invoice-closed trigger — not a daily run that scans for newly-closed invoices. Lifecycle triggers fire exactly when you want; scheduled scans can miss things.
• Building one giant automation instead of several focused ones. If your rule has twelve conditions and four actions, split it. Smaller rules are easier to read, easier to disable, and easier for a teammate to understand later.
• Re-using one email template for everything. Generic templates produce generic-feeling emails. Build separate templates for different moments — confirmation, on-the-way, post-job, past-due — and use the right one in each rule.
• Forgetting the email template needs to exist first. Automation rules reference templates by name. If the template is missing or renamed, the message goes out blank or fails. Build the template, test it manually, then wire the automation.
• Chaining too many automations together. A rule that triggers another rule that triggers another quickly becomes hard to follow. Prefer flat rules with clear conditions over long chains.

Related articles

• The automation builder in 90 seconds
• Three automations most businesses want on day one
• Customizing the invoice email template
• Customizing the appointment confirmation