Triggers
Rules that watch your contacts and start something automatically when one matches — so a plan launches the moment a record changes, not whenever someone notices.
On this page
1What a trigger does
An Action Plan answers “what happens, and when.” A trigger answers the question before it: “who should be put on that plan in the first place, and when?”
A trigger is a rule with two halves:
The shape of a trigger
Triggers are also scoped by contact type, so a rule written for Clients doesn’t fire against Vendors or Employees.
2Building the conditions
Conditions are built as rules against contact fields, combined with logic operators. You can compare a field, check that it’s empty, match part of a value, or exclude a value:
| Operator | Meaning | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| equals | Field matches exactly | Lead source is a specific campaign |
!= | Field is anything except this value | Everyone who isn’t already a customer |
| IS EMPTY | The field has no value at all | Contacts missing a phone number |
| Like %..% | The value contains this text anywhere | Any job title containing “Manager” |
Multiple conditions combine with AND or OR. AND narrows — every condition must hold. OR widens — any one is enough. Getting these the wrong way round is the most common reason a trigger fires far more or far less than expected.
A condition worth knowing: “No Action Plan Running”
A trigger can require that the contact isn’t currently on any action plan. This is how you stop a new sequence from interrupting one already in progress — particularly important because launching a contact onto a plan replaces whatever plan they were on.
3Creating and managing triggers
From the Triggers screen you can Create, Edit, Duplicate and Delete triggers. The list shows, at a glance, what each one initiates, the action, and which contact type it applies to.
Duplicating is the practical way to build a family of related rules: get one right, then copy it and change the single condition that differs, instead of rebuilding the logic each time.
Build it narrow, then widen
Start with conditions tight enough that only a handful of contacts match, confirm the right ones are caught, then loosen. It’s much easier than discovering after the fact that a rule swept a thousand people onto a campaign.
4Triggers vs. Action Plans
They’re often confused, so:
| Trigger | Action Plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Answers | Who starts, and when | What happens, and in what order |
| Made of | Conditions plus one thing to initiate | A sequence of timed steps |
| Runs | When a contact matches | Once launched, over days or months |
In practice they’re a pair: the trigger is the doorway, the plan is the corridor behind it. A plan can also be launched by hand, by a lead source, or by another plan finishing — a trigger is just the most automatic of those doors.
5Troubleshooting
My trigger never fires
Check the contact type first — a trigger scoped to Clients will never match a Vendor. Then check whether your conditions are joined with AND when they should be OR: a set of AND conditions that can’t all be true at once matches nobody.
My trigger fires for far too many contacts
Usually the reverse problem: OR where you meant AND, or a “Like %..%” match that’s broader than intended. Tighten one condition at a time.
The trigger fired but interrupted an existing sequence
Launching a contact onto a plan replaces the plan they were on. Add the No Action Plan Running condition, or use a Parallel Trigger Plan, which runs alongside the active plan instead of replacing it.
6Related pages
- Action Plans — what a trigger launches, including Parallel Trigger Plans.
- Templates — the message content a trigger can send.