Trigger from outbound communication
under review
R
Ryan Hartigan
There is no way to trigger on outbound SMS/email and no way to wait for an outbound SMS/email. 90% of our clients now ask for a round robin to happen again after a certain period of time of no contact made from the salesrep. But we are not able to have anything trigger or stop an automation based on an action taken by the salesrep. Unfortunately, this means sometimes a salesrep’s leads is assigned to the next salesrep even though they did everything right in terms of getting to the lead as fast as they could
Log In
A
Ashwin Raghunandan
Hey everyone, Ashwin here (PM for Workflows).
A lot the ideas shared are closely related "User (Team Member) Replied Trigger" post too. I shared a detailed update there earlier this week, and I wanted to bring the same context to this thread since the use cases overlap quite a bit -and then get your input on what's specific to outbound.
Instead of just. handling user replies, we're scoping this as "Outbound Message" - which is broader and covers more of what folks here have been asking for. And it can have a sub filter to classify the outbound message as a reply to a specific inbound trigger in the workflow. It would show up in two places:
- Wait Action — Outbound Message
A new option inside the existing Wait step. The contact waits in the workflow until an outbound message goes out, with filters for who sent it (assigned user, any user, specific user), the channel, and a timeout branch for when nothing goes out in time. That timeout is what powers the SLA case — "if no rep texts the lead in 30 minutes, send an internal notification."
- Goal Event — Outbound Message
A checkpoint you place before any step that asks: "has an outbound message already gone out to this contact?" If yes, the contact exits or skips ahead. This is what stops nurture sequences from firing once a real conversation is happening - if a rep already reached out, you don't want the contact getting reassigned to someone else.
Full context on the parallel post is here: https://ideas.gohighlevel.com/automations/p/user-team-member-replied-trigger-needed
Where we'd love your input
Between the Wait and the Goal, a lot of the scenarios in this thread should be covered - but probably not all of them. So a few questions:
- If you read the above and your use case still doesn't fit, can you walk us through what you're trying to build and where exactly it falls short?
- For folks who want this as a standalone trigger (workflow starts when an outbound message goes out): what would the workflow do from there? What filters would you reach for first?
- For the outbound message details - timestamp, channel, body, who sent it = available inside If/Else conditions and as merge fields in downstream steps seem to be the common use case. If you have more in mind, a quick example of how you'd use them would help us a lot.
Thanks, everyone - really appreciate the detail you've all put into this thread!
W
Wesley Schiesari
Ashwin Raghunandan about question 2 about just triggering the sent message trigger, then I would use the filter to find out if the message was sent by a user (which user), by a workflow or by the AI (Conversation AI), the AI part is very important, it needs to be mapped regardless of the origin of the message sent. For example, the AI sent a message, when the AI sends this message, it triggers the workflow to inactivate, assign, send an email, etc.
M
Michael K
Ashwin Raghunandan We need Outbound Message as the Trigger. User sends manual message to the Contact, turn ai Off. Or User sends manual message as the Trigger, update "Last Outreach" date field.
J
Jacob Radcliffe
Ashwin Raghunandan unfortunately my user replied trigger ideas board got smooshed into this unrelated ideas board. But you can maybe read any additional stuff here: https://ideas.gohighlevel.com/automations/p/contact-replied-trigger-does-not-fire-on-cold-inbound-emails
Z
Zach Chiara, CFP®
Ashwin Raghunandan In regards to question 2 and using Outbound message as a standalone trigger. I work in a regulated industry and have to archive all sms communications so letting me trigger on outbound sms would allow me to create a webhook sending my communications to my archiver. Similar to how you have the 'Customer Replied' trigger, I would be using 'Outbound Sent' the same way.
M
Mackensie Liberman
Ashwin Raghunandan I love all of the subfeatures you've mentioned for Outbound Messages! Another use case I have for a outbound message trigger is to use it to help train/add to an AI knowledgebase.
K
Keith Besherse
Ideas Board Finds: User Replied Trigger, https://youtu.be/6UcaEr-lgCM
Multiple related suggestions... Another 300 votes, probably more.
Ideas Board Finds: trigger a workflow when an sms or email is sent, https://youtu.be/JcDlbjhO3nQ
T
Thiago Nunes
Any news about this?
U
Umar Arif
Please i need this feature.
T
Thiago Nunes
Pleeeease! This is urgent
E
Erik Hinds
Need this please!!!!
M
M Mart
YES PLEASE, can we have Snippets as triggers?
T
Ty Averett
This would be crazy helpful. I've tried a few things on my own and here a few things that would be amazing.
--Example Use Case 1--
Automating follow-ups in the pipeline. We use a mix of automated and manual outbound texts to follow up on quotes. What's frustrating is that the system cannot see if a user has replied and sends the automated text, which is confusing to the prospect because they get 2 texts, one of which might have already resolved their question.
--Example Use Case 2--
Making sure texts don't get ignored. We want to make sure when our customers text us they don't fall through the cracks. The ideal would be to create a workflow triggered by an inbound message, that waits then checks if an outbound message has been sent. If no message has been sent, then an internal notification is sent to the team to let them know to respond.
--Trigger Solution--
Workflows being triggered by outbound communication would be fantastic so that these use cases can be made possible.
--If/else and workflow actions--
‼️Important: While having this a trigger is important, we can't stop there. This also has to be integrated into workflow actions and if statements. For example, in my first use case it is important to have as an if statement to keep checking if that outbound message was sent or not. In the 2nd use case, it would be helpful to have this info available so that we can include it in the internal notification (e.g. "Last outbound message was sent {{outbound.lastMessageDateTime}} via {{outbound.lastMessageType}}")
--Parameters--
Parameters to be included in trigger filters, if statements, placeholders, etc:
-Date/time last outbound sent
-Date/time last outbound sent by user, by workflow
-Date/time last outbound sent via SMS, webchat, whatsapp, etc
-Last outbound message type (SMS, webchat, whatsapp, etc)
-Last outbound message body
-Last message sent by (name of user)
-Last message direction (inbound/outbound)
-2nd-, 3rd-, etc-to-last of all of the above (i.e. be able to look at previous outbound and inbound messages)
T
Ty Averett
For reference, here's a custom code workflow action I created to somewhat solve for automated follow-ups doubling up with manual follow-ups. It uses a private integration token with the appropriate permissions to see conversations
M
Michael K
Ty Averett The sad part is GHL can do this via APIs, but not within their own workflows. If you use the API, you can sort Manual vs Workflow, Outbound vs Inbound, and by User. There are 100+ more capabilities with the APIs than Triggers and Actions within the Workflows
B
Brian Pappalardo
This should also include an outbound email via gmail/outlook 2 way sync, as I don't believe those trigger workflows. The use case is if you have a list of prospects and want to assign the contact to the first sales rep who reached out.
D
Divyam Bhadoria
Merged in a post:
Include the WhatsApp trigger → Message Sent
S
Salez Technology
Something that is basic but very important is to know when a message was sent to the customer through the WhatsApp channel and preferably that we can read the content of the message to be able to map and execute subsequent actions.
Load More
→