How to Start Building Your Automation Workflow

There's so much you can do with Automation Workflows in Virtuous! But having infinitely many options means that you may not know where to even begin.

For starters, we encourage you to plan out your workflow before creating it in Virtuous. 

But what exactly should you plan out? How do you even begin to start thinking about how to build one?

Let's walk through the specifics.

Map it Out

You'll need a whiteboard, piece of paper, spreadsheet, or some planning device ready so that you can write out your ideas in a system that's easy to edit. 

Consider the following questions as you work on this:

• Who are your audiences?
• What journey(s) do you want them to have?
  • What are your goals? 
  • How will you track progress toward those goals?
• What happens if...? (The more you ask this, the better!)
• Do you want each audience to experience their journey once or multiple times? 
  • For example: Do you want to wish someone a happy birthday every year or just this year?
• Do you want to include longtime supporters or focus on newer supporters?
• Do you want communications to be sent over the weekend, or only during the week?

Answering these questions can help you determine:

• The right Query Type to use
• Triggers for enrolling Contacts or Individuals - and how to build out the appropriate Query parameters
• Different conditions
• Actions for each audience
• General language to use in communications before building them out
• If some journeys would be better suited for a different Automation Workflow
• Other related Workflow settings

A few examples:

• Do you want to respond when someone makes a donation?
• What if that donation is over a specific amount? 
• What if that donation is made to a particular Campaign or Project?
• Should everyone be eligible? Or only major donors?

Eventually, you can map this out to correspond to Workflow Steps and Actions.

Build Your Queries

Now that you've mapped out the Steps you would like to create, it's time to define each of those audiences using Queries. Workflows are powered by either Contact or Individual Queries. So, it is important to figure out which Query Type to use.

First, ask yourself: What are the general data points that determine my audience? 

• If you would like to run a series based on donor levels, Contact Queries would be the way to go. Remember, giving information exists on the Contact level, so Contact-based audiences would be most appropriate.
• If you would like to run a series based on birthday information, volunteer history, event attendance, or email list subscription(s), Individual Queries would be the way to go. Remember, all of these data points exist on the Individual level, so Individual-based audiences would be most appropriate.
  
  • Let's say we have the household of Harry & Sally McSample in the database and want to run a birthday series. Sally's birthday is coming up, so we want to wish her a happy birthday. But we wouldn't want those communications to go to Harry, right? Using Individual Queries would help to make this targeting more accurate! 

Second, ask yourself: Can I find all these data points in a Contact or Individual Query?

• If you can, then you would just simply build a Contact or Individual Query for each audience. Easy enough!
• If you cannot, then you may need to create Nested Queries. A few examples include: 
  • Nesting a Pledge Query into a Contact Query to determine who has made a Pledge recently.
  • Nesting a Gift Query into a Contact Query to determine who has given from our Giving Tuesday Campaign.
  • Nesting a Sent Email Query into an Individual Query to determine who has engaged in any e-newsletter.

Remember: You cannot build out Steps without having an associated Filter or Query, so creating them now will keep you from getting stuck later on when you build you Workflow in Virtuous.

Additional questions to consider when building out your criteria for each step:

• What qualifies someone for a particular journey?
  • Think: Entrance strategy (enrollment)
• What qualifies someone to no longer be a part of that journey?
  • Think: Exit strategy (unenrollment)
• How do records move along in the workflow?

Create All Items Used in Your Actions

Identify the corresponding Actions in your mapping and build out their respective pieces.

• Marketing Email: Build out your email(s) in our email builder. This allows you to copy any existing templates and easily include your branding in your workflow emails.
• Tag: If you plan to add/remove Tags in this Workflow, make sure the Tags already exist.
• Task: You may choose to use a specific Task Type to keep track of Tasks generated through Automation. If you do, be sure to create that Task Type. Additionally, any staff member who will be assigned the Task should be invited to the database.
• Organization Group: If you plan to assign Contacts to or remove them from Organization Groups, create the associated Organization Groups in advance.
• Custom Field: If you plan to assign values to specific Custom Fields, make sure they're created in advance. Specifically, if your Workflow is Contact-based, you will need to build Contact-based Custom Fields, and if your Workflow is Individual-based, you will need to build Individual-based Custom Fields.
• Contact Note: You may choose to use a specific Note Type to keep track of Contact Notes generated through Automation. To do so, be sure to create the Note Type.
• Email List: If you will be assigning Individuals to an Email List, create that Email List.
• Letters on Demand: If you have this feature enabled and would like to have letters or cards sent out via Automation, build out the associated template(s) first.
• SMS: If you have this feature enabled and would like to have text messages sent out via Automation, build out the associated template(s) first.

Put it Together!

NOW you're ready to create your Automation Workflow in Virtuous! When all the pieces are planned and built out, you may find that this stage is just about assembling them. You may even consider starting from one of our best practice templates and customizing based on the plan you've outlined.