This article is part of two series:

Workflows (formerly called Playbooks) are series of linked action steps. There are two types of Workflows:

Workflow steps can automatically activated (sent or scheduled) or deactivated (canceled), based on timings, dependences and conditions that you configure - you can read about scheduling your Workflow steps here. In terms of conditions specifically, you can set these on:

These mean that the relevant steps automatically occur, at the relevant time. The Workflow can adjust dynamically (steps activating/deactivating) while it's running, in response to changes in data.

A typical use case example of a Sequence is sending a series of emails to End Users to encourage them to do something, whether that's to carry out an action within your application/product, or to engage with an email. You can use data about whether an End User has completed that goal as a condition, so once achieved, the Sequence stops sending more emails to remind them, as those additional emails would be unnecessary and potentially annoying to the End User.

In this article, we're going to take the example of a Sequence emailing End Users with the aim of getting them to reply - and once they do, you want the Sequence to stop sending any further emails.

There are a variety of situations where this might be the case - for example:

We're going to show you a couple of ways you could set this up in Workflow Templates, using either group conditions, or Workflow exit criteria.

Group conditions apply to groups of steps in Workflows, and can be used to both activate and deactivate the group.

When a group condition is met, its steps are activated, and you can configure the group condition so that if/when the condition is no longer met, any remaining steps are expired.

In this simple proof-of-concept example, we have created a Workflow Template (a Sequence targeting End Users) that has an initial email in the first group to prompt the End User to reply, and then we have a follow-up email in the second group to again request a reply, to be sent 7 days later if no reply has been received.

As you can see in the screenshot above, we have applied a group condition to the second group - the one with the follow-up email. The condition activates the group (and starts the step timing). We have set this to "if Workflow Reply Rate is equal to 0", which corresponds to there being no reply. This means when the Workflow Template is first applied to an End User, the group is activated right away, as no replies will have been received at that point. However, as soon as a reply is received, the Workflow Reply Rate will no longer be 0, so the group condition will no longer be met.

The group condition is set by clicking on the ellipsis symbol (3 dots) on the right-hand side of the group header, and selecting "Group condition".

The group condition in this example looks like this:

You can see in the screenshot above that we've set it to expire any pending steps when the group condition is no longer met. What this means in practice is that if an End User has replied to the email sent in the first group before the follow-up email in the second group is sent, the second group will be deactivated and the follow-up email won't be sent.

Great! Now let's apply the Sequence Workflow Template to an End User to observe what happens.

In the screenshot below, we are looking at the Full-Page Profile of a test End User we've applied the Workflow Template to. We can see that the first email has been sent (shown in the "Conversations" box at the bottom of the screenshot), and the second email has been activated and is scheduled to send in 7 days' time (shown in the "Emails" tab of the "Planned" box in the screenshot below).

If we open up the Workflow itself (there is a "Workflows" section in the End User Full-Page Profile, and we can click on the name of a Workflow there to open it up), it looks like this, again reflecting the sent email and the scheduled follow-up email:

Now let's see what happens if the End User replies to that first email - remember, we are expecting the scheduled email to be canceled.

Looking at the End User Full-Page Profile, we can see that the sent email in the "Conversations" section has a reply synced into Planhat (as shown by the "2" and reply text), and the previously scheduled email is now no longer showing in the "Planned" section.

If we open up the Workflow on the End-User Profile (see the first tip box below), we can see that the follow-up email has disappeared from the second group. We can also see that the "Reply Rate" field on the Workflow has the value of 100, representing a reply, and this is what has caused the group condition to no longer be met and the follow-up email to be expired/removed.

Click the image to view it enlarged

In our next example, we use Workflow exit criteria to end the Workflow when there is a reply. When the exit criteria are met, this cancels any remaining steps (emails) and archives the Workflow.

Our Sequence Workflow Template is set to send a initial email to prompt the End User to reply, and 7 days after that it will send a follow-up email unless the Workflow is exited.

You can see the exit criteria in the bottom right:

Click the image to view it enlarged

Because the Workflow acts on the End User model, the exit criteria also need to refer to the End User:

In this case, we have set up a Global Filter on the End User model. You configure Global Filters in the "Data" Global Tool (also called the "Data Model" Global Tool).

This is our Global Filter:

We want to refer to the EmailEngagement model (which you can read more about here), so we begin the filter with "Id / Match By / EmailEngagement".

Once we've selected EmailEngagement in this way, we refer to its properties (fields) within the indented box below:

Now let's see it in action - we'll apply our Workflow Template to a test End User.

Once the first email has been sent, we can see the following in the End User's Full-Page Profile:

The first email has been sent and so is saved in the "Conversations" part of the Full-Page Profile. The second email has been activated and is in the "Emails" tab of the "Planned" section, because it's scheduled to send.

If we open up the Workflow on the Profile, we can again see that the first email has been sent and the second email is scheduled.

Now let's confirm what happens when the End User replies.

One important point to note is that the exit criteria we set up is specifically based on when the End User enters the Global Filter. There may be a slight delay between the reply being sent and synced into Planhat, and the filter being processed/updated. You can view the number of records currently in any Global Filter in the "Data" ("Data Model") Global Tool, like in the example screenshot below for this particular filter. The "Count" column reflects the number of records (in this case, the number of End Users) in that filter.

Click the image to view it enlarged

If the reply has synced into Planhat, and you don't want to wait for the Global Filter to be automatically processed, you can prompt it to process by opening the Global Filter to edit it, changing the criteria and then changing them back again, and then saving it. You should also refresh your browser window to ensure it reflects the processed filter.

Once you see that the count has been updated and now includes your End User with a relevant Workflow email reply, you can double check your results.

In this example, on the End User Profile, we can now see this:

In the "Conversations" section at the bottom, the reply is now showing in the email thread (which now states "2" in the icon), and now there isn't a scheduled email (the follow-up) in the "Planned" section.

If we open the Workflow on the Profile (see tip box below), it looks like this:

If we mouse over the orange envelope icon for the second email, we can see that it has been marked as "Don't send".