Creating automations around estimates

In this article, you'll learn how to build automation rules that run when an estimate is created, sent or approved. It's how you follow up on quotes without keeping a list in your head, and how your team hears the moment a customer says yes.

Automations is part of every account. There's nothing to turn on in Features first.

To open Automations:

  1. On the web, click Automations in the menu.
  2. On the phone app, tap the bolt icon in the top bar of the Home screen, between refresh and search.

What can start an estimate rule

When you pick an estimate as the trigger, the rule can run when the estimate:

  • is created
  • is sent
  • is approved

An estimate counts as approved when your customer signs and approves it, and also when someone in the office sets its status to Approved. There's no trigger for a declined or archived estimate.

Create an estimate automation

  1. Click + Add automation.
  2. Click the name box at the top and type a name you'll recognize, like "Estimate follow-up".
  3. Click this happens, then under an estimate pick is created, is sent or is approved.
  4. Click do this and pick who gets it and how: send client or your team a text message, an email, or (for the client) a text and email.
  5. Click within a defined time and choose immediately, or after with a number of minutes, hours or days. A delayed estimate rule counts from the estimate's date of sending.
  6. If you're sending to your team, pick people from the names under the sentence. Pick nobody and it goes to the account owner.
  7. Click Preview/edit message, write what goes out (see below), then click Save and close.
  8. Click Add automation.
Starting a new estimate rule
Tip: On an is created rule, use immediately. A brand-new estimate hasn't been sent, so there's no date of sending to count from, and a delayed rule skips it.
Note: The Automation will be sent box at the bottom holds sends to the hours you set beside it (9:00 to 21:00 unless you change it). Anything due outside those hours waits until they open.

Writing the message

Under the message box you'll see the short codes you can use on estimate rules. Click one to drop it in where your cursor is:

  • client_first_name and client_full_name
  • business_name
  • estimate_number
  • estimate_link, the link your customer opens to view and approve the estimate
  • total

Email rules also get a Subject line.

Follow up on estimates automatically

There's a ready-made rule for chasing estimates nobody has answered: 3 days after an estimate is sent, it emails the client.

  1. In Automations, click the Discover tab.
  2. Under Follow-ups, hover over Email Follow-Up / 3 Days After and click Use (on the phone, tap Use on the card).
  3. Change anything you like, such as switching the email to a text or 3 days to another number.
  4. Click Preview/edit message and write the email. Put estimate_link in it so they can open the estimate in one tap. Click Save and close.
  5. Click Add automation.
Using the estimate follow-up template
Warning: This template starts with an empty message. If you save it without writing one, nothing is sent.

From then on, every estimate you send gets the follow-up without you doing anything.

What's checked before a delayed message goes out

A delayed message waits in a queue until its time comes. Right before it sends, the CRM checks again. It's skipped if the rule has been turned off, the estimate has been deleted, or the rule's conditions are no longer true. If it lands outside your send hours, it waits for them.

On its own, a follow-up doesn't know the customer has already answered. To stop it going to someone who approved or declined in the meantime, add a condition:

  1. In the rule, click Add condition.
  2. Pick job status, click = is, and choose Pending.
  3. Click Apply.

On an estimate rule, this condition reads the estimate's own status. A sent estimate is Pending until the customer answers, so once it's approved or declined the follow-up is skipped.

Note: This only works if Pending is still in your job status list, since the choices come from there.

To see what a rule sent, skipped or still has lined up, click Activity on its card.

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