How to automate CRM system management
CRM automation helps reduce manual tasks and simplify your workflow. Automatically create contacts, deals, and tasks, update field data, and send messages to clients and managers after specific events in the CRM system or other SendPulse tools.
In this article, we will talk about how to get started with CRM automation.
Automation use cases
Lead processing
Automation enables instant reactions to new inquiries, which means you can send emails, create tasks, add pipeline deals, update fields, assign tags, and more with no manual intervention. This reduces the risk of losing potential customers due to delays.
Teamwork
Define every team member's access rights, assign deals from external tools to specific users, and update task and deal stages automatically. With automation in place, your team can dedicate more time to valuable and demanding tasks, such as client communication, sales, and analytics.
Marketing
SendPulse's CRM system can automatically adapt your conversation approach based on client behavior. For instance, it can send messages through different communication channels, adjusting to clients’ interests or deal stages.
Analytics
Automatically collect and organize data in the CRM system to monitor your performance in real time. Access detailed overviews about every client, team member, or campaign.
Getting started
You can use built-in integrations to link the CRM system to other SendPulse tools and automate your company’s workflows.
Before you start automating, make sure to assess your business workflows. Single out all activities that involve lots of manual effort, like creating new deals for payments made through your website, and focus on them first.
Create an automated flow
Use Automation to run flows using trigger-based actions.
SendPulse’s CRM system and other tools act as your data sources, while Automation is your action center that receives events and triggers flows. This approach ensures the CRM system remains easy to use, without being overloaded by complex settings.
In the CRM section, go to your pipeline, task board, or the Contacts tab, and click the flow icon.
Click Create automation and go to the flow builder to set your trigger and add elements.
Read more: Automation 360 elements.
Select a trigger
To launch a flow, you can use triggers that respond to actions in the CRM system or other SendPulse tools. Once a contact enters your flow, they will move through it based on the conditions you set in each element.
The system recognizes contacts using the {{email}} and {{phone}} variables. This means that every contact must include either an email address or a phone number.
Click your flow start element, go to the CRM tab in its settings, and select a trigger.
Let’s go over some examples of business workflows you can automate using triggers.
| Trigger | Definition | Automation scenario |
| Create deal | New deal | Send a welcome email and create a task for a team member. |
| Change the deal stage | Transition to another deal stage | If you receive a payment and your deal moves to the Paid stage, delete related tasks. |
| Change deal field | Updates to budgets, deadlines, and other data | If your budget changes, notify a team member through email. |
| Overdue deal date | Deal expiration | Send a reminder to a team member. |
| Add new contact | New CRM contact | Send a welcome email. |
| Special contact date | Date-type variable with a specific date | Congratulate your client in a message. |
| Tag assignment | Newly assigned tag | If your contact has the VIP tag, send an email with access to exclusive content. |
| Variable update | Updates to email addresses, phone numbers, or locations | If your contact’s location is Atlanta, send information about a local offer. |
| Add task | New task | Send an email with task details to your inbox. |
| Change task stage | Transition to a new task stage | Run a chatbot flow with relevant information. |
Read also: CRM Automation.
Add an action
In your automated flow, you can add the Action element to make changes in the CRM system automatically.
Add the Action element, go to the CRM tab in its settings, and select an action. Using this element, you can automate the following workflows:
| Use case | Automation scenario |
| Task management |
Using the Create task action, you can create a task named "Call back Read also: How to automate CRM task management. |
| Contact management |
You can create contacts and use the Assign tag to contact action to add a tag to a contact at a specific flow stage. For example, you can add the "Interested in gardening products" tag once your client opens a related email. Read also: How to automate CRM contact management. |
| Deal management |
You can create new deals and use the Change deal stage action to move them to other stages. For example, move your deal to the Read also: How to automate CRM deal management. |
You can also use Action > Other > Change contact variable to overwrite variables in the CRM system.
Add a filter
To filter contacts by a specific criterion, add the Filter element and select the Variable or Tag condition in its settings. This element checks your CRM contact data using specified conditions.
Your automated flow must use a CRM trigger to select variables or tags from the CRM system in your Filter. Variables will be mapped to fields in your selected CRM pipeline.
Add a condition
To diversify your automation scenario, add the Condition element and select Deal stage update in its settings. Select a source and target deal stage to move a contact further down your flow.
To give you an idea, you can select Successfully completed as your target deal stage and add multiple actions. Namely, you can send a thank-you email to your client, assign the Buyer tag to them, and create a task named "Request feedback in 7 days."
Use variables
The system passes data using system and custom variables.
You can also create variables in deal and contact fields. To do this, go to CRM > Contacts > Settings > Fields and add a field. This field will be mapped to a variable you can use in your automated flow.
You can use CRM variables if your flow is launched by a CRM trigger.
Your deal variable values in Automation will have the _deal suffix. These variables will sync with CRM deal fields, while variable values without this suffix will sync with contact fields. For instance, the budget_deal variable will pass its value to the Budget deal field in your pipeline.
To pass a variable value to an existing CRM deal field, type in the exact field name, including its letter case. If the field name or data type differs, the system will create a new field instead of passing the variable value.
To transfer data, your flow must use the Create deal or Change deal stage triggers.
In messages
You can add variables to emails and messages using Email, SMS, Viber, Push, or Messenger elements.
In your text element, click the variable icon and select a variable from the list.
To make your email templates more personalized, add contact names using the {{firstName}} system variable. Similarly, if you’ve created deals, use the {{address_deal}} custom variable to include clients’ delivery addresses.
In flow elements
Automation supports variables that pass and insert values from the CRM system, formatted as {{field_name}}. Deal-related variables will have the _deal suffix to help you distinguish them from contact variables with the same names.
Variable use will differ based on the element type. In the Filter element, you can use variables to check values. In the Action element, they fill in values for new records, such as deal names, or pass data into contact and deal fields.
Suppose you filter contacts using a specific tag. You can then send them an offer and create a task for your team member to follow up after a set period.
Other automation methods
API
Using API methods, you can create deals and contacts, as well as assign, update, and delete fields, tags, and contacts. On top of that, you can also integrate SendPulse’s CRM system with external tools to exchange data.
Read also: SendPulse CRM Public API.
SendPulse tools
Automatically save all client data to CRM contacts and deals from SendPulse’s website builder, email marketing service, chatbot builder, subscription form builder, pop-up service, and online course builder.
Read also: Sources of automatically added deals and contacts.
Last Updated: 25.04.2025
or