Manage automation rules

Tech admin, Business admin

Gong Engage*

Automation rules help you manage your sales engagement processes at scale. To keep track of your automation rules, go to the Automations page. This centralized view allows you to view and edit all of your automation rules in one place and see where and how they’re being used.

Automation rules can be applied to company flows. They cannot be applied to personal flows.

Manage automation rules

From the Automations page, you can see each automation rule’s status, who created the rule, and who last modified it. You can also click to edit, duplicate, or delete a rule.

Use the filters at the top left to find specific automations. You can filter by Created by or Last updated by by typing in names, or filter by Status or Trigger. The Trigger filter lets you select the CRM entity used for the rule’s trigger, which can be Lead, Contact, Account, or Opportunity.

The Trigger column shows which CRM entity the automation rule uses for the trigger, and whether there are any conditions. The Action column shows what happens when the rule is triggered and the required conditions are met.

Creating automation rules

How automation rules work

Automation rules are made up of 3 components:

1. When: This is the trigger of the automation rule

2. If: This is a filter for the trigger

3. Then: This specifies what should happen when the rule’s conditions are met

Let's look at a conceptual example. Say we're a flower shop that wants to send flowers to every family that just had a child born and are residents of New York City. In this case, we would only want to trigger sending the flowers when a child is born, not when the families move to New York City. In this example, the When, or the trigger, is having a child. The If, or filtering condition, is to include only residents of New York City. The Then is to send flowers.

Our automation rule's logic would look like this:

When a child is born in New York City, If the parents live in New York City, Then send flowers.

Setting up a rule

To create an automation rule from the Automations page:

1. Click Add automation at the top right. Give the rule a name and description.

2. Click Add trigger to specify when the automation rule should fire and select the CRM entity you want to use to trigger the flow. If you use Salesforce, you'll see Contact, Lead, Account, and Opportunity, and if you use HubSpot you’ll see Contact, Account, and Opportunity.
   

3. Select whether the trigger should be when a record of the contact/lead/account object is Created or is updated with. The is updated with option includes all of the fields that are being imported from your CRM into Gong for that object. If you don't see the field you need, you can import the Salesforce field / import the HubSpot field
   

4. Adding conditions under the If section is optional. You can use it to set the conditions for when the rule should fire. Start by selecting the relevant field from the dropdown.
   

5. Options in the dropdown include any imported CRM fields associated with the CRM entity you select for the trigger (the When section). For example, if the trigger you select is “Contact is created”, the fields in the dropdown in the If section are imported CRM fields associated with contacts and accounts. If the trigger you select is “Lead is created”, the fields in the dropdown in the If section are imported CRM fields associated with leads.

   
   

   When building your first condition group, you can choose whether the logic for the condition group should be OR or AND. Adjust this by switching the toggle at the top right corner of the condition group box. OR logic means that at least one of the conditions must be true for the overall statement to be true. For example, with the statement “Contact email is A or B or C”, if the contact email is A or B or C, the statement is true. AND logic means that all conditions must be true for the overall statement to be true. For example, “Contact email is A and B and C” is only true if A, B, and C are all true.

   
   

   You can also choose whether to apply OR or AND logic between condition groups, not only within an individual condition group. Once you’ve added multiple condition groups, adjust the logic between condition groups by switching the toggle at the top left under Set the operator between the condition groups.

   
   

   For free text fields, you can add multiple values. The values will be automatically separated by an “or” condition.
   
   For tailoring an automation rule to specific team members, you can use user lookup fields within a condition. For example, you could select Owner ID as the field and select one or more team members from the list.
   

6. The Then field defines what happens when the conditions of the rule are met.

   Click Add action > Add contacts to flow or Add leads to flow to select which flow you want people to be added to.
   
   To specify who the to-dos for this flow will be assigned to, select the CRM field that represents the person they should be assigned to from the And assign to dropdown. This also determines who the sender will be for any emails in the flow.
   
   For rules with an Account or Opportunity trigger: specify what the rule should do if it outputs more than one contact, or can’t identify any contacts.
   
   If you select the ask flow assignee to select a contact manually option, the flow assignee will get a to-do prompting them to select a contact from the related account to add to the flow.

   

7. Click Save. The rule won't be activated immediately when you save it, it's off by default until you switch it on.

Retry schedule for flow start automations To ensure automation rules have access to the most up-to-date data and reduce the likelihood of missed triggers, Gong retries flow start automations two more times a few minutes after the rule is triggered.

In many cases, CRM workflows take time to populate key fields after an object is created. For example, a newly created lead may not have an assigned owner immediately, as this information is often updated through another automated workflow. To accommodate this, Gong retries the automation on the following schedule:

• First attempt: 2.5 minutes after the trigger applies

• Second attempt: 5 minutes later

• Final attempt: 2.5 minutes after that

Automation rules and flow exclusivity

If a contact is in one or more non-exclusive flows and meets the criteria for another non-exclusive flow, the automation rule will add them to that flow.

If a contact isn’t in any flow but matches the criteria for both an exclusive and non-exclusive flow, the exclusive flow takes priority.

If a contact matches the criteria for multiple exclusive flows at the same time, they will be added to one randomly.

Exclusive flows won’t remove people from other flows.

*The features available to you depend on your company’s plan and your assigned seats.