Falaah Falaah AI

Automation Sequences

Build a multi-step follow-up that sends itself, such as a thank-you now and a follow-up a week later: steps with delays, a trigger that enrolls people, and pause, resume or stop controls per enrollment.

A sequence is a follow-up that sends itself. You set the steps and the gaps between them once; after that, anyone enrolled moves through the steps on schedule, and anyone who replies or unsubscribes drops out.

When you’d use this

  • A first-time donor should get a thank-you now, an impact note in a week and an invitation in a month.
  • A new volunteer needs a welcome, then the orientation details two days before.
  • A lapsed donor should get a short re-engagement series rather than one email you hope lands.
  • You want the follow-up to happen whether or not anyone remembers to send it.

See your sequences

Go to Communications → Settings, open the Automations tab, then the Sequences section. It lists every sequence with a count, an Add Sequence button, and a drafting panel that can propose a sequence for you.

Create a sequence

Add Sequence takes you into the broadcast composer in drip-sequence mode, which is the quickest way to build one.

  1. Write the first message as you would any broadcast, pick the audience, the channel and the wording. That message becomes step 1 and sends immediately on enrollment.
  2. Choose Drip sequence under Send Options. A sequence sends on a single channel per step, so this option is unavailable while more than one channel is selected.
  3. Under Drip Sequence Steps, add each follow-up: its channel (Email, SMS or WhatsApp), the delay before it fires in hours or days (the default is 1 day), and its subject and message.
  4. Click Launch Sequence. Muin confirms with Sequence launched, N enrolled across M steps and takes you to the sequence.

A recipient who replies or unsubscribes is dropped automatically, so you do not have to manage that yourself.

Open a sequence

The sequence page has three tabs.

Overview shows:

  • Status, Active or Disabled
  • Trigger, how people get enrolled, with when it last fired, or never fired
  • Enrolled and Completed counts
  • A Settings card with the Stops on reply and Business hours badges
  • The step timeline, in order

Enrollments lists every person in the sequence with their state: active, paused, completed, stopped or failed. Per person you can Pause, Resume, or Stop.

Metrics shows Total Enrolled, Active, Completed, Stopped and a Completion Rate.

Pause, resume or stop one person

  • Pause holds the next send and nothing else. Resume picks up where the person left off.
  • Stop takes the person out permanently: none of the remaining steps will send to them, and it cannot be undone. Enrolling them again later starts the sequence over from step 1.

Use Pause if you only want to hold the next send.

Edit a sequence

Open the sequence and choose Edit.

Sequence Settings holds:

Field What it does
Name Required
Description For your team
Trigger Manual, Event-based, Scheduled or Condition-based
Respect business hours Holds a send until your business hours, so a step does not land at 3 a.m.
Stop on reply Drops someone from the sequence as soon as they reply
Enabled Whether the sequence runs at all. A new sequence starts switched off.

Choosing Event-based reveals the event that enrolls people. The supported events are a donor anniversary, a vendor certificate expiring, a grant deadline approaching, and an upcoming board meeting.

Steps

The Steps panel lists the sequence in order. Add Step appends one; drag a step to reorder; deleting a step asks to confirm and cannot be undone.

Select a step to edit it:

Setting Options
Step Type Send Message, Send Template, Delay, Condition, Wait for Reply
Timing Immediately, After delay, or At specific time
Delay In minutes
Template For a Send Template step, picked from your active message templates

A Wait for Reply step pauses the sequence until the recipient replies. A Condition step is evaluated automatically by the sequence engine.

Click Save Step for each step, and Save Changes for the settings.

Editing a sequence that is live

Changes save as soon as you click Save, with no staging step, and they apply to everyone already enrolled from that point on. Two consequences:

  • Editing the wording of step 4 changes what everyone who has not yet reached step 4 will receive.
  • Someone who has already passed a step does not receive it again because you changed it.

If you need the old wording preserved for people mid-flight, build a new sequence and switch the old one off rather than editing it. Switching Enabled off stops new sends; it does not stop enrollments you have already created, so stop those individually if you need to.

What it affects

  • Scheduled Messages shows each step as it is queued, so a sequence’s next send can be stopped there without touching the sequence. See Scheduled Messages.
  • Templates are read at send time, so editing a template changes every sequence step that points at it.
  • Audiences decide who gets enrolled when you launch from the composer. See Audiences and Segments.
  • Consent applies to every step. Someone who opts out of marketing email, or whose address is suppressed after a hard bounce, is skipped rather than sent to.
  • A person merge carries the enrollment across to the surviving record, so sequence history is not lost.

When it goes wrong

What you see What to do
“Save the sequence first, then add steps.” Steps attach to a saved sequence. Save the settings, then add steps.
“Name is required” Fill in the sequence name.
A validation message under the trigger form An event-based trigger needs its event configuration completed. The message names the field.
“Couldn’t load sequences” The Automations area needs communications automation access. Ask your owner or admin to grant it.
The sequence is saved but nothing sends Check the Enabled switch, a new sequence starts off. Then check Trigger: a Manual sequence only sends to people you enroll.
“Sequence not found.” The sequence was deleted, or the link points at another workspace.
“Failed to launch sequence” in the composer The launch was rejected. The composer shows the reason when the server gives one. Check that exactly one channel is selected, a drip sequence cannot be multi-channel.
Someone got a step they should not have Open Enrollments and Stop them. Then check whether the step should be behind a Condition step.
“No steps yet. Add a step to start building your sequence.” The sequence exists but is empty, so an enrollment completes with nothing sent. Add at least one step.

Next step