Automation is great, but there's still no substitute for a human touch, especially in the world of fundraising. But you can build out a workflow that will let you and your team know when to reach out and connect.
To add a task to any workflow step, click on the "Add an action" button.
This will bring up the Action Details form. Select "Task" from the drop-down list to set the type.
Then you'll see some additional fields to configure the settings for your task.
Give your task a clear Title that makes it clear what needs to be done. For example, a task like "Call" isn't very specific, while "New Donor Welcome Call" provides some much-needed context.
On the right, you'll enter a number for the "Days till due" setting. This determines how far in advance a task will be created before it's due. For example, setting this to "2" means that when a task gets created as part of your workflow, it will have a due date that is set 2 days after it is created. We recommend a minimum of 2 days, to allow time for staff to be alerted about and complete tasks.
Of course, you'll also need to select a user from your organization who will be assigned this particular task. Only one user may be selected for each task.
In some cases, you may want to create rules around which user will be assigned to a particular task. For example, you may have two development officers that each cover a specific area of the country. In your workflow, you may want the East Region development officer to call any Contact who makes a large Gift and lives in the East region, and you may want the same to happen for the West Region development officer for large Gifts from donors in the west.
The key to accomplishing this is to remember that the only place where you can control these variables is in your query. You would need to create one query for large Gifts from Contacts in the East Region, and another for large Gifts from Contacts in the West Region. Then, each of these queries will be associated with separate steps. The sequence of actions in each step may be nearly identical, with the only difference being that the task is assigned to a different user in each.
So for all branching scenarios or situations where you would like to define routing rules, each branch will require its own query and its own separate workflow step.
Finally, if you would like to create a task for a user to send a personal email, you can select a Personalized Email Template to associate with your task. When a user completes their task, they will be able to customize the email further before sending it from their own email account. You can learn more about Personalized Email Templates here and here.