Automatic follow-up workflows

A lead who hears back in five minutes is a different conversation from one who hears back on Thursday. A workflow is a short sequence of emails Velosiq sends for you while a client sits in a particular pipeline stage — typically a thank-you the moment they come in, and a check-in a few days later if nothing has moved. You pick the exact date and time for each one.

Workflows send under your business name and reply to your address. Your clients never see Velosiq.

Before you start

You need at least one email template. See Email templates for clients — a workflow is just a schedule of templates.

Turning one on for a client

On the New client or Edit client screen there's a Workflow section under Status. Tick the box and you'll get a timezone for the sequence — pre-filled from your profile — and a row for each email:

• Pick the date and time it should go out, using the calendar picker.
• Or tick Send immediately for a message that goes out as soon as you save. That's the usual choice for a "thanks for reaching out".
• Pick the template for that row.

Every row can be removed, including the immediate one, and Add another email gives you as many as you want.

The timezone applies to the whole sequence. Set it to your own zone for most work, or to the client's if you'd rather their 9am than yours. Times are stored as real moments, so they hold even across a daylight-saving change.

Picking a time that's already passed is allowed — it goes out at the next check, within about fifteen minutes.

Saving a default per stage

Rather than picking dates from scratch for every lead, save a sequence under Settings → Clients → Workflows. Each pipeline stage gets its own editor.

Defaults are relative, because they're reused: you say "3 days later at 2:00 PM", not a calendar date. When you tick the Workflow box for a client in that stage, those turn into real dates counted from that day — which you can then edit for that client.

Defaults are suggestions, not automation. Nothing sends because you saved a default — a client only ever gets email once you tick the box for them specifically.

What the client's page shows

Open a client and the Overview tab has a Follow-up workflow card:

• the stage they're in,
• an on/off switch,
• the next email scheduled, with its date, time and timezone,
• every step in the sequence, marked sent, scheduled, missed or failed.

Missed emails

Dates are real dates. If an email's moment arrives while the workflow isn't running — because you switched it off, or because the client had moved to another stage — it is marked missed and is not sent late. It won't fire when you switch the workflow back on either.

That's deliberate: a "checking in since we spoke Tuesday" that lands three weeks late is worse than one that never lands. If you still want it, edit the client and give that row a new date.

An email that's overdue only because the system was briefly down is a different case — that one still sends, as soon as things are running again.

Turning a workflow off

Flip the switch on the client's Overview tab. Anything still scheduled will not be sent. Your sequence is kept, so switching it back on later restores it — emails still in the future resume on their original dates. Any whose time passed while it was off are missed.

What happens when you change a client's status

Changing the status stops that stage's workflow. Nothing further from it will send.

This applies whether you changed the status yourself or Velosiq did — taking a payment or sending a proposal moves a client forward automatically, and that stops the old stage's sequence just the same.

The sequence isn't deleted, it's paused. You'll see it listed under Paused on the client's Overview tab. If the client ever comes back to that stage:

• emails that already sent stay sent and never repeat,
• emails still in the future resume on exactly the dates you picked,
• emails whose time passed while they were away are missed, and stay missed.

Arriving at a new stage doesn't start anything on its own. You'll see an empty Workflow box, pre-filled with that stage's default if you saved one, ready for you to switch on.

Things worth knowing

• A client with no email address gets nothing. The client form warns you when this is the case.
• A workflow belongs to one stage. A client can have a paused sequence for several stages, but only the one matching their current stage can send.
• Editing a template changes future sends. Emails already sent are unaffected; anything still scheduled uses the latest version of the template.
• You can't delete a template that a workflow still uses. Velosiq will tell you what's using it so you can remove it there first.
• Sends are checked every fifteen minutes, so a 2:00 PM email may arrive a few minutes after two. "Send immediately" goes out within seconds.

Your responsibility

These are your emails to your clients, sent on your instruction. You're responsible for having a reason to contact them and for following the email rules that apply where you and they are. Velosiq doesn't add an unsubscribe link, because your clients don't have Velosiq accounts — stopping the emails is done here, by switching the workflow off.