Actions, waits and paths

Steps are what happens to a contact after the trigger. Click any + on the canvas (or press B) and Add a step opens in the right-hand panel. Its tabs are All, Actions, Goals and Conditions; type in Search steps — e.g. wait, tag, email to filter the tab you’re on.

Every card on the canvas summarises what the step will do — Wait 3 days, Tag is added — Lead · within 3 days, VIP / Everyone else, 50% / 50% — so you can read the flow without opening each one.

Actions

Actions do something to or for the contact. On the Actions tab they are grouped into Contact, Email, Timing, Automation and WordPress & developer, followed by any integrations you have installed.

Contact

Action	What it does
Add a tag / Remove a tag	Puts the chosen tags on the contact, or takes them off.
Add to a list / Remove from a list	Adds the contact to the chosen lists, or takes them off.
Change contact email status	Sets New status to Subscribed, Pending, Unsubscribed or Transactional.
Update contact fields	Writes new values into one or more fields. Each row has Field, How and New value; Add another field adds a row.
Add a note or activity	Leaves a note, call or meeting on the contact’s timeline: Kind, Title and What it says.
Add to a company / Remove from a company	Links the contact to a company (optionally Make it their primary company), or unlinks them. Only while the companies module is on.

Some actions refuse on purpose, and the step is skipped with the reason in the contact’s history rather than failing:

• Add to a list never puts someone back on a list they unsubscribed from. It adds the other lists it names.
• Change contact email status never moves someone who unsubscribed, bounced or complained to anything but Unsubscribed — only the contact can bring themselves back. Choose Subscribed only when the trigger itself was their consent, like clicking an opt-in link; the change is recorded on their timeline.
• Update contact fields values can use merge tags, including {{today}} and {{now}}. A multi-choice field lets you replace, add to or remove from what is there; a number field lets you set, increase or decrease it.

Email

Action	What it does
Send an email	Sends an email you write in this step.
Send a campaign’s email	Sends the email of an existing campaign, with that campaign’s subject, content and sender. A contact who has already had that campaign is skipped.
Add to a sequence	Starts the contact on a sequence from its first email. The sequence must be on.
Take out of a sequence	Stops the chosen sequences for this contact (leave empty for every sequence).

For Send an email, click Write the email in the panel. The editor opens with the envelope above the content:

• From — the site’s sender, or tick Use a different sender for this email.
• To — The contact or Other people. Other people (a sales inbox, an account manager) get the email at once, without tracking or an unsubscribe link, and it ends with a link to the contact in the CRM.
• Kind of email, for the contact: Marketing — subscribed contacts only, or Account — logins, receipts, onboarding. An account email also reaches contacts who never subscribed or have yet to confirm. Never use it to promote anything. Nobody who unsubscribed gets either kind.
• Subject and Preview text.
• Send — As soon as it’s reached, Only within certain hours (days and a time window), or On a specific date, with Send right away or Skip this email if that date has passed when the contact gets there. Times are in your site’s timezone.

Send a test sends the email as it stands to one address. If that address belongs to a contact, their details fill the merge tags.

Automation

Action	What it does
Take them out of other automations	Ends the contact’s runs in the chosen automations (leave empty for every other automation).
Start another automation	Puts the contact into another automation at its first step. It has to be on, and its own re-entry setting decides whether they may start it again.
End the automation	Takes the contact out here. The card reads Contacts stop here, and they count as Completed.

WordPress & developer

Action	What it does
Create a WordPress user	Gives the contact an account if they have none: Role (empty for the site’s default), Username (made from their email if empty or taken), user meta, and Email them their login details.
Change their WordPress role	Gives their user the chosen role — replacing their current roles, or keeping them and adding this one.
Remove a WordPress role	Takes the chosen role off their user. Someone left with no role gets the site’s default.
Update WordPress user meta	Writes key and value rows to their user meta. Values can use merge tags.
Send a webhook	Sends the contact to an address you choose.

Create a WordPress user and Change their WordPress role only offer roles that cannot take over the site — never administrator, editor or shop manager. An administrator’s roles are never changed by any of these steps. To add or change these steps you need the WordPress permission to create users (for Create a WordPress user) or to promote users (for the other three).

Send a webhook takes a Remote URL and a Method (POST, PUT or GET). Under Send, choose The whole contact or Fields you choose (name and value rows, with merge tags). Format is JSON or Form data, and Headers adds header rows, such as an Authorization token. Send a test sends the step with your newest contact’s details and tells you what the receiving end answered. Any answer other than success is retried.

Waits

Find these under Timing.

Wait holds the contact before they move on. Choose what to wait for under Wait for:

Wait for	Settings	They move on
A length of time	How long and a unit, from Minutes to Months (3 days by default)	After that long. A month is a calendar month.
A date and time	Until	At that moment.
The next day of the week	On these days (none ticked means any day), At	At the next such day and time.
A date on the contact	Date field, Days before or after, At, and Wait for the next anniversary	On that date, or its next anniversary.

A contact whose date is missing, or already past, doesn’t wait at all — they carry straight on. A wait until a date that has already passed shows as a warning in the checklist.

Wait for an event

Wait for an event holds the contact until they do something, for at most a time limit. Click Choose an event to pick the event (any trigger), fill in its settings, and set Give up after.

When a contact arrives, the event is checked first. If it already happened since they entered — they already have the tag, they already clicked — they move on at once. Otherwise they wait until it happens or the time runs out, whichever comes first.

By default everyone carries on to the same next step either way. Turn on Do something different if it doesn’t happen to split it into two paths, It happened and Time ran out. You can’t turn the switch off again while either path has steps on it.

Goals

A goal marks what the automation is for. Pick one from the Goals tab — each card is an event, such as Tag is added or Clicks a link in an email.

When a contact does the goal’s event while they are anywhere above it on their path, they jump straight to the goal and skip what lay between. Someone who already bought doesn’t get the “still thinking it over?” email.

• A goal never does the thing itself. To add a tag, use Add a tag; a goal on Tag is added only notices it.
• An event caused by an earlier action in the same automation doesn’t count as the contact reaching the goal early.
• A goal inside a path only moves contacts on that path.
• Someone who gets here without having done it — Carries on (the default) or Waits here until they do it, with no time limit.
• Let others join here — someone who does this without being in the automation joins at this goal and gets the steps after it. The re-entry setting still applies.

Goals reached show on the report’s Goals card.

Paths

Find these on the Conditions tab.

If / else

If / else checks the contact’s data when they arrive. Those who match the first path’s rules go one way; Everyone else goes the other. Rename either path in the panel. The rules are the same as segment rules.

A/B split

A/B split shares contacts between paths at random, by the weights you set. Each path has a name and a percentage. Share evenly splits 100 between them, Add a path adds another, and the bin icon removes one when there are more than two. The weights must add up to 100% before you can go live. A path at 0% shows Nobody will take this path.

A contact always lands on the same path, however many times they are checked.

On either kind, a path with no steps is allowed — contacts on it go straight to whatever follows the split. The checklist points these out in case it was a mistake.

Stop early

Stop early takes someone out part-way, and they skip the rest. Open Settings in the builder header:

• When they do something — pick an event, such as Unsubscribes or Tag is added. The moment it happens to a contact in the automation, their run ends.
• When they match rules — rules checked before every step. A contact who matches as they move on to the next step leaves.

Contacts taken out this way are counted as Left. Finishes an automation, with Leave early, by a leave rule ticked, can start another automation for them.

Unsubscribing doesn’t end the run

When a contact unsubscribes, the emails to them are skipped but the rest of the flow carries on — tags, fields and webhooks still happen. Add Unsubscribes under Stop early if you’d rather they left altogether.