Automations let you trigger a series of actions — emails, text messages, custom field updates, time delays and branching — automatically whenever a specific event happens on a Contact (a Person or an Organisation) or on a receipt, or on a schedule you set. Instead of doing repetitive tasks by hand, you build a workflow once on the automation canvas and SwiftFox runs it every time the trigger fires.
What an automation is made of
Every automation is built from two core parts:
- A trigger — the start condition (the event that kicks the automation off, such as a form being submitted, a custom field being updated, or a receipt being created — or a schedule, daily at a set time or at a regular interval).
- One or more actions — what happens after the trigger (send an email, send a text message, update custom fields, manage categories, create a task, create a post, find people and organisations to work through one by one, wait for a time delay, split into conditional branches, or split by record type).
You can chain multiple actions together, insert delays between them, and branch the journey based on conditions to build a complete multi-step workflow.
Finding Automations
- Open Automations from the left menu.
- If you can't see the Automations option, your user permissions don't include access. Ask your system administrator to grant you permission.
The Automations landing page
The landing page lists every automation in your account, with its name, when it was last modified and created, its status (On, Draft or Off), its circle (when viewing in the Global context) and who created it. A three-dot menu at the end of each row holds the quick actions. Full detail: The Automations list & statuses (On / Draft / Off-Unpublished).
Click Create automation (top-right) to open the automation canvas and build a new one.
What you can do with Automations
- Send a thank-you email and an internal notification automatically when a form is submitted.
- Email a receipt for a donation or payment form, merging in transaction details.
- Update a custom field (for example, an onboarding status) when a record changes.
- Send a text message when a contact detail or custom field is updated.
- Add or remove categories on a record, or create a follow-up task for your team.
- Route contacts down different paths using conditional branches based on their form answers or receipt status.
- Stage a multi-step journey with delays between each action.
- Run on a schedule — for example, every morning find the members whose expiry date is within three months, email each of them, and record that the reminder was sent.
How automated activity is recorded
When an automation sends an email, that send is logged as a line item on the recipient's profile under the Insights tab, so you can confirm the automation ran and reached the contact.
Related guides
For full detail on each part of the automation canvas, see the other guides in this feature: The Automations list & statuses (On / Draft / Off-Unpublished); Triggers (custom field, address, contact, form submitted, receipt); Automation actions; Conditional outcomes & branching; Building multi-step journeys (chaining, delays); Merge fields availability & limitations by trigger; Save vs Publish & activity logging (Insights); Automations — Workflows: step-by-step; Automations — Frequently asked questions; and Automations — Limitations & best practice.