Create and manage automations in Engage

Who can use this: Tech admin, Business admin

Available on: Gong Engage

Automations help you manage your sales engagement processes at scale. To keep track of your automations, go to the Automations page. This centralized view allows you to view and edit all of your automations in one place and see where and how they're being used, whether they are triggered by CRM changes, date-based conditions, or smart trackers on calls.

Automations can be applied to company flows. They cannot be applied to personal flows.

What can trigger an automation?

Trigger automations based on:

• Changes to CRM objects, such as when an object is created or a specific field is updated

• For opportunities, you can trigger automations when a significant date is approaching or has passed

• Use smart trackers to detect concepts on calls that trigger an automation.

If you select a CRM entity trigger, the objects displayed depend on which CRM you integrate with and which objects you import to Gong.

Create an automation from the Automations page

To create an automation that can be applied to company flows:

1. From the left sidebar, click Assets, and select Automations.

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

3. Click Add trigger to define when the automation runs.
   

4. Select whether the trigger should be when a record of the contact/lead/account/opportunity object is Created, is updated with, or created or 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, or import the Dynamics field.
   

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

6. 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.

7. 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 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.

8. If you select Opportunity for the trigger, you have the option to trigger the automation to run based on a date field on the Opportunity. For example, start a flow 20 days before a renewal date or 30 days after a contract is signed. To set a date-based trigger, select Opportunity, then select current date is, and specify how many days before or after that date the automation should run. Choose any date field available on the opportunity, such as close date, renewal date, or any custom opportunity date field.
   

9. If you select a smart tracker as the trigger, the automation will use the conditions defined as part of the smart tracker. Configure the detection logic in the smart tracker settings.

10. The Then field defines what happens when the conditions of the automation 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.
    The person you select for And assign to must have an Engage license or the automation will fail to run.
    For automations with an Account or Opportunity trigger, specify what the automation should do if it outputs more than one contact, or can't identify any contacts. If the automation selects a contact without a parent account, the automation will fail to run.
    For automations with a smart tracker trigger, the Add contacts to flow action is triggered by an account or opportunity associated with the call. The contacts surfaced are the call participants from the associated account. Gong creates a to-do for the flow assignee to select contacts to start the flow, so the assignee can review the smart tracker context and select the relevant people. If the call is associated with contacts from more than one account, the automation will fail to run.
    
    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.
    

11. Click Save.

Note:

Saving an automation saves your changes, but doesn't start it. To begin adding contacts or leads to the flow, switch the automation on after saving.

CRM change triggers vs. date-based triggers

Unlike CRM triggers that fire when a CRM field changes, date-based triggers run on a daily schedule. This means date-based triggers do not run immediately when you create or edit an automation. Each morning, at 5AM local time, we evaluate which opportunities meet your date condition. Any matching opportunities will fire the automation at that time. Using date-based triggers helps automate time-sensitive workflows like renewals, onboarding, handoffs, or follow-ups without manual steps. Date-based triggers currently work with opportunities only.

Create an automation from a flow page

To create an automation from a flow:

1. From the left sidebar, click Assets, and select Flows.

2. Next to the rule you want to work on, click Set up automation.

3. Follow steps 2-7 above. When you're ready, switch it on.

What happens once an automation is turned on

Once an automation is enabled, view details about each run in the Run History tab. Automations run when a trigger event happens after they're enabled, and only if the conditions are met at that exact moment. If the trigger happened before the automation was enabled, or if the conditions match later without a new trigger, the automation won't run. In other words, automations don't retroactively scan for matches or keep re-checking unless something new triggers them. For smart tracker triggers, the trigger event is a new call that was processed with the selected smart tracker detected.

How to manage your company's automations

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

Flow exclusivity

Automations don't run in a specific order. If the same lead or contact meets the criteria for more than one automation, Gong will decide which flow to start based on the flow exclusivity settings described below:

• If a contact is in one or more non-exclusive flows and meets the criteria for another non-exclusive flow, the automation 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.