Build an automation
An automation is a flow that runs your outreach for you: when a trigger fires, optyflo carries out a sequence of actions — send an email, wait, check a condition, and so on. Set it once, and it sends forever. Think of it as "Zapier, but built for email."
Before you start
Every automation needs at least one Send Email step, and each email needs a subject and body — otherwise you'll hit a "Missing Content" / "Incomplete Email Content" warning at save time. Also make sure your SMTP is connected, or the logic will run but the emails won't deliver.
Step 1 — Open the Automation Center
Go to Automations in the sidebar (route /client/automations). This is your Automation Center, headed "Build Intelligent Flows" — home for every flow you build.
From here you can start fresh with New Automation, start from a Browse Templates pre-built flow, or Import Flow to load a flow someone exported as a .json file. Existing automations show up as cards you can Activate/Pause, view logs for, edit, or delete. Filter with the all / active / draft tabs or the Search automations... box. If you've never made one, you'll see "No Automations Found" with a Start Building Now button.
The Automation Center — start a new flow, browse templates, or import one.
Step 2 — Meet the builder
Click New Automation to open the visual builder (route /client/automations/new). The canvas starts with a single trigger node, "New Automation Trigger" ("Select an event to start this flow"), wired to an END node — you build your flow in between.
Along the top you'll find an editable name (default "New Automation - <date>"), the Builder / Settings / Enrollment History / Execution Logs tabs, a Test Workflow button, a Draft ↔ Publish toggle, and a Save button. Down the left is a toolbar of colored action icons, plus a + Add button for dropping in new steps.
The builder canvas: a trigger node connected to an END node, with the action toolbar down the left.
Step 3 — Choose a trigger
Click the "New Automation Trigger" node to open its settings, then pick a Trigger Event. The trigger is the thing that starts the flow — a contact joining a group, a tag being applied, a form coming in, and so on.
Pick what starts the flow, choose its target, and decide who gets enrolled.
| Trigger | Fires when… |
|---|---|
| Contact Joins Group | a contact is added to a group |
| Form Submitted | someone submits a chosen form |
| Tag Added | a specific tag is applied to a contact |
| Contact Created (All Contacts) | any new contact is created |
| CRM Stage Changed | a deal moves to a chosen pipeline stage |
Next, set the Target Selection ("-- Choose Target --") to the specific group, tag, or form — or the Pipeline + Stage for CRM. For contact-based triggers, an Enrollment Mode also appears: Only New Contacts, Only Existing Contacts, or Both (New & Existing).
Step 4 — Add actions
Add steps using the left icon toolbar or the "+ Add" button. Each step is one thing the flow does after the trigger fires — you can chain as many as you need.
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Send Email | send a template or write one from scratch |
| Wait / Delay | pause a set time, or until a specific date |
| Condition | branch on a rule (has tag, field value, opened, clicked) |
| Wait for Reply | pause until the contact replies, or times out |
| Webhook | call an external URL |
| Notification | notify your team |
| send a WhatsApp message |
More on Wait / Delay and Condition
Wait / Delay can be a Relative Delay (wait X days or hours) or an Exact Date.
Condition types are Has Tag, Contact Field, Email Opened, and Link Clicked, with operators including Equals, Not Equals, Contains, Does Not Contain, Exists, Does Not Exist, Greater Than, and Less Than.
A simple welcome flow, for example: Tag Added → Send Email → Wait 2 days → Send Email.
Step 5 — Configure a Send Email step
Click a "Send Email" node to open its Send Email Settings panel. Because every automation needs at least one working email, this is the step to get right.
Choose Use Existing Template from the dropdown (or leave it on "-- Start from Scratch --"), set the Email Subject, and confirm the To Address (it defaults to ). Write the Email Body with the Code / Preview / AI Generate options, plus the Design with AI and Choose Template buttons. If the body is empty, the node warns "Content Missing" — fill it before you save.
The Send Email Settings panel: template, subject, to-address, and body.
Step 6 — Save & activate
Click Save (or flip the Publish toggle). A "Ready to save?" modal appears — "This is the automation you've built. How would you like to save it?" — reminding you that "Publishing will make it live immediately. Drafts can be activated later."
- Publish Now — makes the automation live immediately; matching contacts start flowing through it.
- Save as Draft — keeps it for later. You can activate it anytime from its card on the Automations list (the play/pause toggle).
- Cancel — go back to editing.
The publish/draft modal — go live now, or keep it as a draft.
Don't skip validation
If any email is missing its subject or body, you'll see "Missing Content" / "Incomplete Email Content" instead of a clean save. Fix the flagged step, and double-check your SMTP connection so published emails actually deliver.
Build it with AI
Don't want to drag nodes around? The sidebar AI Builder button is a chat assistant that designs and edits automations for you. Describe what you want in plain English — "Build a welcome sequence for newly tagged contacts" — and it drafts the flow, reading your real templates, tags, and contacts.
Crucially, it stages changes into a draft you can test (dry-run previews, or send a test to yourself) and only goes live when you explicitly Promote to Live. There's also a standalone AI Flow Builder that builds a flow from a plain-English description — "Describe your automation in plain English, and AI will build it for you."
Test before you trust
Use Test Workflow in the builder (and the AI Builder's dry-run) to walk a sample contact through the flow and confirm the emails, delays, and branches behave the way you expect — before real contacts hit it.
That's the whole journey — you can now import an audience, write emails with AI, send campaigns, and automate the lot. If you want to retrace any earlier step, head back to the overview. Happy sending. 🎉