How to Build & Trigger Automations

Automations are the backbone of a well-run CRM. Instead of remembering to send follow-ups, create tasks, or update records manually, you define the rules once and TrustPager handles the rest every time, without fail.

The Automation Builder

Each automation has two parts: a trigger (what starts it) and one or more actions (what happens). The visual builder shows the flow clearly: trigger at the top, actions in sequence below.

Available Triggers

TrustPager supports a wide range of trigger types:

• Stage Change - fires when an opportunity moves between pipeline stages. Note: stage-change automations work differently - they bind to a single pipeline stage and are managed from the pipeline page at https://app.trustpager.com/operations/pipelines. They do not support multiple triggers.
• Form Submission - fires when a contact submits a form
• Form Opened - fires the first time a recipient opens a form you sent them (before they submit). Use this to follow up while your form is top of mind.
• New Contact Created - fires when a contact is added to the CRM
• Deal Value Updated - fires when the opportunity value changes
• Tag Added - fires when a specific tag is applied
• Scheduled - fires on a time-based schedule (daily, weekly, etc.)
• Webhook Received - fires when an external system sends data
• Manual - fires when you click a button
• Task Completed - fires when a person ticks a task off. See the Task Completed Trigger section below.
• Signature Opened - fires the first time a recipient opens a document you sent for signing (before they sign). Available under the Signatures trigger card.
• Work Order Portal Opened - fires the first time a recipient unlocks the work order portal you sent them.
• Scheduler - fires when a booking is made, rescheduled, or cancelled on your TrustPager scheduling page. See the Booking Event Triggers section below for the full breakdown.

Task Completed Trigger

The Task Completed trigger fires when a person ticks a task off. Use it to react to finished work, for example moving a card to Done once its last task is complete.

To set it up, create an automation at https://app.trustpager.com/auto/automations and choose the Task card ("Ticked off by a person").

When it fires

• It fires when a person marks a task completed from the task list, the task board, an opportunity's task card, or through the API or MCP.
• It arrives about a minute after the tick, not instantly.
• Tasks completed by an automation (the Close Tasks action) do not fire it. That means a "card moved to Done closes its tasks" automation can never loop with a Task Completed automation.

Conditions you can use

• Open Tasks Remaining on Opportunity (a number). Equals 0 means the last open task on the card was just ticked.
• Board (Pipeline ID)
• Column (Stage ID)
• Task Category
• Task Title
• Task Priority

Variables available in actions

Task: {{task_id}}, {{task_title}}, {{task_description}}, {{task_body}}, {{task_category}}, {{task_priority}}, {{task_due_date}}, {{assigned_to}}, {{completed_by}}, {{completed_at}}, {{open_tasks_remaining}}.

Opportunity and contact: {{deal_id}}, {{deal_name}}, {{pipeline_id}}, {{stage_id}}, {{pipeline_ids}}, {{contact_id}}, {{customer_id}}.

Recipe: move a card to Done when its task is ticked

Say you run a To Do board where each card carries one task. Create an automation with:

1. Trigger: Task Completed
2. Condition: Open Tasks Remaining on Opportunity equals 0
3. Condition: Board equals your To Do board
4. Action: Move Opportunity to your Done column

Watch the run count

Once a workspace has an enabled Task Completed automation, every task a person completes counts as one automation run, including tasks on other boards. Always add the Board condition so the automation only acts on the board you mean.

Open Tracking

TrustPager can tell you the moment a recipient opens something you sent them: a document, a form, or a work order portal. Three triggers cover these events:

• Signature Opened - fires when a recipient first views a document sent for signing
• Form Opened - fires when a recipient first opens a form you sent them
• Work Order Portal Opened - fires when a recipient first unlocks a work order portal

Each trigger fires once per recipient: opening the same item again does not re-fire the automation.

Building an open-tracking automation

Open https://app.trustpager.com/auto/automations, create or edit an automation, and select the relevant trigger card: Signatures for document opens, Forms for form opens, or Work Order Portal for portal opens. Choose the Opened event within that card, then attach any action you like.

Common patterns:

• Create a call task - assign yourself a task to call the recipient while the document or form is still open in their browser
• Send an internal notification - ping a team member via email or Slack the moment someone opens
• Suppress a follow-up reminder - use a branch condition so a Day-3 nudge only fires if the recipient has not yet opened

Variables available in actions

When an open-tracking trigger fires, the following variables are available in any action:

• {{recipient_name}} - the name of the person who opened
• {{document_title}} or {{template_name}} - the name of the document or form that was opened
• {{opened_at}} - the date and time the recipient first opened

Activity timeline

Every open is also recorded as an activity on the linked opportunity's timeline: you can see who opened what and when, even if you have not set up an automation for it.

Booking Event Triggers

The Scheduler trigger card (labelled "Booking events" in the trigger grid at https://app.trustpager.com/auto/automations) fires automations off activity on your TrustPager scheduling page. It covers three events:

• Booking Created - a new booking has been made, whether through your public booking link, the staff Add Booking button, or your AI dialler
• Booking Rescheduled - an existing booking has been moved to a new time
• Booking Cancelled - a booking has been cancelled

Scoping by event type

After selecting the Scheduler card and choosing an event, you can scope the trigger to fire for Any event type (the default) or restrict it to a single specific event type. This is useful when you run multiple event types and want different automations for each one.

Fields available in actions

When a booking trigger fires, your actions have access to the booking details via the variable picker inside the action editor. The fields available depend on the event:

All three events: Name, Email, Phone, Event Type, Duration

Booking Created: Start Time, End Time, Meeting Link (for video bookings)

Booking Rescheduled: Old Start Time, New Start Time

Booking Cancelled: Cancellation Reason

Key use cases

• Stop the drip the moment they book. If a contact is in a nurture sequence with scheduled "book a call" emails, a Booking Created trigger can remove them from that queue immediately so they do not keep getting chase emails after they have already booked.
• Notify staff of new bookings. Send an internal email or Slack message to the assigned rep the instant a booking comes in, with the client name, contact details, and meeting time populated via the variable picker.
• Move the opportunity and update the stage. On Booking Created, move the linked opportunity to a "Meeting Booked" stage and update a custom field with the meeting date.
• Follow up on reschedules. On Booking Rescheduled, send the client a confirmation with the new start time and alert the rep.
• Re-engage after a cancellation. On Booking Cancelled, trigger a re-engagement sequence: a task to call the contact, or an email offering alternative times.

Scheduler vs Cal.com: The Scheduler card handles bookings made through TrustPager built-in scheduling. If your workspace is connected to a Cal.com account, you will also see a separate Cal.com trigger card that handles bookings coming from Cal.com only. If you are using TrustPager native scheduling, use the Scheduler card.

Adding Multiple Triggers

A single automation can listen for more than one trigger at the same time. When any one of them matches, the automation fires: this is an OR relationship, not AND. You do not need separate automations for each entry point.

To add a trigger, open your automation in the builder at https://app.trustpager.com/auto/automations and click Add Trigger below the existing trigger card. You can mix trigger types freely: for example, a form submission trigger and an inbound webhook trigger can coexist on the same automation. When either fires, the full action sequence runs.

There is no enforced limit on how many triggers an automation can have, and no restrictions on which source types can be combined.

One exception: Stage Change - stage-change automations are tied to a single pipeline stage and are managed from the pipeline page, not the automation builder. They do not appear in the multi-trigger interface. All other trigger types support multiple triggers.

When Two Automations Listen to the Same Thing

Nothing stops several automations listening to the same trigger, and often that is what you want: one creates the opportunity, another tags it, a third alerts someone. But if two of them write to the same thing, the order matters, and you need to say what it is.

Open the automation at https://app.trustpager.com/auto/automations, click Settings on the Trigger Source card, and set Run order. The lowest number runs first. Everything sits on 0 by default, which is fine until two of them disagree.

The usual case: an intake automation creates the opportunity and puts it on a starting stage, and a second automation moves it somewhere else based on what the lead said. Put the intake on a lower number than the one that moves it, so the move happens second and its result is what sticks. Get that backwards and the card lands on the starting stage, which is the one you were trying to move it off.

Two automations on the same number fall back to oldest-first. That is stable, so it will not change between one run and the next, but it is not a choice you made. If the order matters, set the numbers.

Not the same as the order of actions inside one automation. Within a single automation, actions run top to bottom in the builder and you reorder them by dragging. Run order is only about which whole automation goes first when several of them answer the same trigger.

You can see what happened on any run: the run history lists each automation in the order it actually ran, with its run order beside it.

Checking Text in a Condition

Conditions decide whether an automation runs. On a text field, such as a lead's message, an opportunity type or a phone number, you can check:

• Contains text: the field mentions this word or phrase anywhere.
• Does not contain text: the field never mentions it. An empty field counts as not containing it, so leads with no message still go through.
• Starts with and Does not start with: useful for phone country codes such as +61.

Text checks ignore capital letters, so "perplexity" also matches "Perplexity".

The same checks work on a single step. On any action card, set Only runs if to skip just that step while the rest of the automation still runs.

Recipe: stop spam enquiries getting a reply

1. Open your website lead automation at https://app.trustpager.com/auto/automations.
2. Under Conditions, click Edit and add the field that holds the lead's message, Does not contain text, and a phrase the spam always uses.
3. Save. Genuine leads carry on as normal, and messages with that phrase no longer create a task or get the auto-reply.

Available Actions

Each trigger can fire multiple actions in sequence:

• Send an email or SMS
• Create a task and assign it to a team member
• Update a field on the contact, account, or opportunity
• Send a Slack message to a channel
• Call an external webhook
• Create or update a document
• Move the opportunity to another stage
• Attribute Referral - link a new opportunity to an existing referrer contact, with automatic contact creation if the referrer is not yet in your CRM. See https://trustpager.com/help-center/attribute-referral-via-automation for the full walkthrough.
• Custom Script - write your own JavaScript, or describe what you want in plain English and have AI write it, to run as the final step of the automation. Always runs last, and the code needs a one-time approval before it can execute live. See https://trustpager.com/help-center/custom-script-automation-action for the full walkthrough.

Stopping an Automation When a Step Fails

By default, if one action in an automation fails, the automation keeps going and runs the remaining steps anyway. Usually that is what you want. But sometimes a later step should only run if an earlier one succeeded. For example, you only want to enrol someone in a follow-up sequence if the step that generates their quote actually worked.

Every action has a Stop the automation if this step fails toggle on its card in the builder. It is off by default. When you switch it on, a failure on that step halts the automation and none of the steps after it run.

Order matters. Actions run from the top of the builder downwards, so the step you want to guard on must sit above the steps you want it to stop. To prevent a "send follow-up" step from running when a "get quote" step fails, put the "get quote" step first and turn its toggle on. If you turn the toggle on for the very last step there is nothing after it to stop, and the builder will tell you so.

When a run is halted this way, the run shows as Failed (if no earlier step had completed) or Partial (if some earlier steps completed), and the steps that did not run are marked as skipped in the run detail.

Run History

Every time an automation fires, TrustPager logs a complete audit trail: what triggered it, what data was used, which actions ran, and whether each step succeeded or failed. This makes debugging straightforward: you can see exactly what happened and why.

Tip: Start with simple automations (one trigger, one action) and add complexity once you see them working. The most impactful first automation for most businesses is a follow-up sequence that fires when an opportunity moves to a new stage.