Articles on: Communication

How to Use Automations

Automations (formerly Automatic Emails) let you send a templated message, or log an activity, automatically based on a date or a content change on an enquiry or other data sources. Automations now live at company level rather than in individual venue settings, which means you can set one up once and apply it across several venues, add richer conditions, and control individual events separately.

This article explains where to find Automations, how to set one up quickly from a preset, how to tailor a preset to your own process, how to build an automation from scratch using custom settings, and how to add rules so an automation only sends to the right events.

Where to find Automations

Automations are managed at company level rather than in individual venue settings.

From the main side menu, select Company.
Select Automations.

Any automations you had previously set up under venue-level Automatic Emails were migrated across automatically. We recommend checking each one is configured as expected before relying on it.

Setting up an automation from a preset

Presets give you a starting point for the most common types of automated communication. Each one comes with sensible default conditions and timing already in place — you just need to review them and choose your message templates.

Go to Company > Automations > Add New Automation.
Enter a name for the automation.
Under Use Presets, choose the preset you want, read its description, and select Next.
In Automation Settings, choose which venues the automation should cover, and review its conditions, timing, categories and any active date range.
If the preset sends a message, choose a suitable template for every venue you've included — a preset doesn't select templates for you.
Set Enabled to Yes, confirm, and save

New automations are created disabled by default, so nothing goes out while you're still setting things up. Only switch Enabled to YES one you're happy with the configuration.

Available presets

Preset	What it does by default
Payment Reminder	Sends a message at 09:00, one day before an accepted charge is due. Transactions sharing a due date are grouped in a single message.
Tasting Booking Reminder	Sends a message at 09:00, one day before a tasting booking; initially limited to wedding events.
Appointment Reminder	Sends a message at 09:00, one day before selected appointment types, including show-arounds and meetings. Ceremonies are not included by default.
Event Start Reminder	Sends a message at 09:00, one day before a confirmed event starts.
Post Event Communication	Sends a message at 09:00, one day after a completed event ends.
Payment Received & Verified	Sends a message when a payment transaction becomes accepted.
Customer Inactivity Detection	Creates an inactive activity at 09:00, seven days after the last customer interaction on an enquiry, provided no next interaction is scheduled.
Auto Reply To Event Messages	Sends an Auto Reply template when a new incoming event message is received. No delay added to the response by default
Auto Reply To External Form	Sends an Auto Reply template when a received external-form submission arrives. Applies to all forms unless you add a form condition. No delay added to the response by default
Contact After 3 Days Of Enquiry	Sends a message at 09:00, three days after the enquiry date, but only if the event is still an enquiry, the initial enquiry remains its last customer interaction, and no next interaction is scheduled.
Event Status Change Confirmation	Sends a message when an event changes from Enquiry to Date On Hold

Tailoring a preset to your process

After creating an automation from a preset, you can edit its conditions, action and applicable venues at any time. A few examples:

Target a particular form — add a Form condition to Auto Reply To External Form so only submissions from that form receive the reply.
Change when a reminder runs — adjust Appointment Reminder to run two days beforehand instead of one, or widen its appointment-type conditions to include meetings or custom appointment types.
Follow up on a different status change — change the before-and-after conditions on Event Status Change Confirmation, for example from Enquiry → Date On Hold to Confirmed Pending → Confirmed.
Tailor communication by venue — choose the appropriate template for each venue rather than sending the same message everywhere.

What you can't change on a preset

You can edit a preset's conditions, action and venues, but you can't change its trigger type, source, or relative-date anchor (the date it's counted from). If you need a different trigger or anchor date, create a separate automation instead — either from another preset or using custom settings.

Watch out for overlapping automations

Some presets can match the same record. For example, Auto Reply To Event Messages can also match external-form messages, so enabling it alongside Auto Reply To External Form for the same submissions could send two replies. Check for this kind of overlap — including with any existing form-specific replies you already have — before enabling a new automation.

Tip: The Run only once setting applies per source record. For message automation, that means once per message, not per customer- so a customer can still receive it again if a new qualifying message or record is created.

Building an automation without a preset

If none of the presets fit what you need, you can build an automation from scratch.

Go to Company > Automations > Add New Automation.
Select Use custom settings.
Choose a trigger, a source, and an action yourself.
Add conditions, configure timing and templates as needed (see Adding rules and conditions, below).
Set Enabled to Yes once you're ready, and save.

Custom settings are useful for anything a preset doesn't cover out of the box — for example, an automation tied to a particular event-status transition, or a follow-up message relative to an event date that doesn't match one of the standard presets.

Adding rules and conditions

Rules (stored under different source conditions) let you narrow down exactly which events, appointments, tastings,... an automation applies to, on top of its trigger and timing.

Where to find conditions

What you see depends on what the automation is tied to:

An automation tied to an event (for example, one relative to the event date) shows Event Conditions, where you can filter by things like event type and status.
An automation tied to an appointment (for example, Appointment Reminder) shows Appointment Conditions as well as Event Conditions — so it can be filtered by both the appointment itself and the event it belongs to.

You'll usually find an option to add a condition in the corner of the relevant section.

Worked example: adding a status rule

This example adds a rule to an automation relative to the event date, going out before the event, so that it only sends to confirmed weddings.

Open the automation. In this example it's already filtered to event type Wedding, but the status isn't controlled yet, so it could go out to any wedding regardless of stage.
In Event Conditions, add another rule.
Choose Status and set it equal to Confirmed.
- If you were setting up something for after the event instead, you'd typically set status equal to Completed.
Select Save.
Scroll down to the bottom of the automation to double-check the conditions shown — in this example, confirming Type is Wedding and Status is Confirmed.

Once everything looks correct, the automation is ready to enable.

Tip: you can add multiple rules to the same automation, so you can be as specific as you need- for example, a particular event type and a particular status, or a status that is not equal to a given value (helpful for excluded cancelled or completed events).

Managing automations at the event level

Each individual event has its own Automations section, showing which automations are scheduled to run for that event. From here you can:

Pause upcoming automation attempts.
Re-enable an automation for that specific event only.
Restrict an automation from sending for that event entirely.

This is particularly useful in sensitive situations where you don't want a particular automated message to go out for one event, without switching the automation off for everyone else.

If you're unsure whether an automation and a rule will interact the way you expect, it's worth testing against a single event first, or getting in touch with support before switching it live.

Updated on: 29/09/2026

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