Automate the routine steps on a deal

On every deal the same follow-ups come round: the partner wants to know when a document is agreed, the signing associate picks up each document that moves to signing, and someone has to remember to collect the signature pages. An automation on the deal board does these steps the moment the work reaches them, so nothing depends on someone remembering.

Two questions shape each automation. What should set it off? A status changing, a task moving to a group, a date arriving. And what should happen then? An email, an assignment, a new task, a move.

You need to be a manager of the board to set up automations. For anyone else, Automate is greyed out with the note "Only board managers can use this."

Start from a template or write your own

1. Open the deal board and click Automate in the toolbar. The Automation centre opens on the automations the board already has.

2. Click Templates to see ready-made rules, sorted under Categories on the left: Explore, Basic, Featured, Notifications, Status change, Recurring, Due date, Item creation, Move item and Integrations. Each card reads as the rule it sets up, for example "When a status changes to something then notify someone via email". Click a card to start from it.

   

3. If no template is close, click Create your own automation and build the rule from the start.

Build the rule as a sentence

Every automation reads as one sentence: When this happens, and only if... a condition holds, Then do this, and then do this for each further action. Click each underlined part of the sentence to fill it in.

1. Click When this happens and choose the trigger, such as When a status changes to something, When a task is moved to a group, When a person is assigned or When date is upcoming or arrives.

2. To narrow it, add a condition with the plus beside the trigger, such as And only if a status is something or And only if a task exists in a group. Leave it out when the rule should apply to every task.

3. Click Then do this and choose the action: Then notify someone via email, Then assign a person, Then create a task, Then move the task to a task group, Then push the date by some days and more. Add another action with the plus beside it; it reads and then do this.

   

4. To tell automations apart later, click the note icon at the top right (add title & description) and give the rule a title, such as "Partner sign-off on agreed documents".

5. Click create automation. The rule is saved and switched on, and it is listed under manage automations with its sentence and an Off/On switch.

Example: tell the partner when a document is agreed

On Project Alpha, the acquisition of Beta Holding A/S, the board has a Status column, a people column called Partner and a Files column called Final documents.

1. Choose When a status changes to something. Pick the Status column, then the label "Agreed".

2. Choose Then notify someone via email. Click notify and write the message. The panel beside it inserts details from the task that set the rule off, such as Item for the task's name and Task Board Name for the board, and the values of the board's columns.

3. Click someone and choose who receives it: a named person, or a people column. Choose the Partner column, and the email goes to whoever is the partner on that task.

4. Click with attachments and tick the Final documents column. The files in that task's Final documents column go with the email as attachments, so the partner can read the agreed document without opening Juristic. Putting a Files column in the message itself only lists the file names.

   

Example: hand a document over for signing

1. Choose When a task is moved to a group and pick the group Signing.

2. Choose Then assign a person. Choose whether she is added to the people already on the task or replaces them, then pick the signing associate, Anna Lambda, and the people column to put her in.

3. Add Then create a task. Name it "Collect signature pages", pick the task group it goes in and, under and set values, click Add value to set columns on the new task: an owner, a status, or a deadline a number of days from when the task is created. Columns you don't set keep their default value.

Check that it ran

1. Under manage automations, click the three dots on an automation and choose Run history.

2. Read the runs. Each shows Completed, With warnings, Failed or In progress, and when it ran.

   

3. Click a run to see each step: the task it ran on, who set it off (or Automatically triggered for a date or a schedule) and what each action did. A warning says what did not go as set up, for example "Email sent, but 1 attachment was skipped because the attachment limit was exceeded." A failure gives the reason, such as "The task group used by this automation no longer exists." Click View automation to correct the rule.

Tips from practice

• Notify a column, not a name. A rule that emails the Partner column follows each task to its own partner and still works when the team changes.
• Automations travel with the board. Duplicating a board, or creating one from a board template, copies its automations, pointed at the new board's own columns, groups and labels. Build the rules once on the firm's deal template, and on each new deal board check under manage automations that the ones you want are switched on.
• A deleted column or group stops a rule. The switch then cannot be turned on, with the note "A dependency was removed from the Automation." Open the rule with edit Automation, choose a column or group that exists, and save it again.
• Created tasks do not set off other rules. A task made by Then create a task does not trigger the board's other automations, so two rules cannot keep creating tasks for each other.

For reminders ahead of a deadline, see get reminded before a deadline. For tasks that come round every month, quarter or year, see set up recurring tasks on a schedule.