The trigger
A playbook’s trigger is the same rule builder segments use, so everything a segment can match on, a trigger can match on too. It also carries the same counting choice:
Customers is the default, and it matters more here than on a list. Counting accounts on a customer with three accounts means the playbook runs three times and creates three tasks for one customer.
Preview matches shows how many accounts a trigger catches and names the first twenty. Worth using before switching anything on — a trigger that quietly matches your whole book is much easier to spot in a list of names than in a number.
Steps
The flow runs top to bottom. Use the + between any two steps to add another.Actions
Update a trait takes either a literal (“Live”, today’s date) or a formula in the same language smart traits use, with the same
traits. and indicators. names. So a step can work out a next renewal date from the current one rather than only stamping something fixed.
A formula that can’t be worked out on a particular account — usually a misspelled trait name — fails that step for that account and the run carries on. It won’t write a broken value.
Rules
Split into branches sends a run down one of several paths. Branches are checked left to right and the first match wins, so they read as “if this, else if that”. Anything matching none of them takes the Otherwise path. Wait for a period of time holds a run for a number of days. It waits the full period whatever else changes meanwhile. Wait until rules are met holds a run until the account matches a condition — someone completes onboarding, usage crosses a line. Give it a maximum, or a run waiting for something that never happens will sit there forever and never reach the steps after it.Counters
Every step shows what happened on it: how many runs completed it, failed on it, or are waiting on it. These are worth reading. A playbook where every run piles up on one wait step looks perfectly healthy as a diagram — the counters are the only thing that tells you the steps below it have barely run.When a run ends
A run ends when it reaches the bottom of the flow. If an account stops matching the trigger part-way through, what happens depends on the playbook’s exit setting:- Let it finish (the default) — the run carries on to the end. This matters when a later step writes the very thing the trigger reads, which would otherwise stop the run before it gets there.
- Stop immediately — the run halts where it stands, and its remaining steps never happen.