Help · Automations

Applying changes and enabling

Two separate acts decide what an automation does. Applying changes decides which version runs; enabling decides whether it runs at all. Neither one does the other’s job, except the first time you apply changes, when one box does both.

Applying changes

Apply changes takes your working copy and makes it the version people receive. Before it does, it tells you what these changes will do.

Things to fix before applying changes

Apply changes stays shut while the editor already knows the changes would be refused — nothing chosen to start it, a step still marked To set up, an import note not yet cleared, or a text step set to Manual or Live while your store does not send texts. Resting on it says why, and a red button beside it counts what is left — 3 to fix — and opens the list. It is numbered, and says:

Each step is marked on the canvas with the same number.

Each row says what is wrong in a sentence and has Show, which takes you to the step and opens it. Once you have opened the list, every step it names carries its row's number and the word Fix on its card. Escape, or the list's own close button, puts it away. Some things can only be found by trying — a list archived since you chose it, or a team member who has since left — so if applying changes is refused for one of those, the list opens by itself with that row in it.

An email that links to a product, collection or page your store no longer has, to a product that is a draft, archived or not on your online store, or to a collection or page you have hidden from your online store, is refused here too, with the sentence the email's own Checks card shows. Once the automation is running it never stops for a link: if one of those is deleted or unpublished later, the email still goes and the link takes people to your store's front page.

An email that shows a Discount code with no discount chosen in it is refused here too, and the row names the step that sends it: that email could never go out. Choose a discount in the email, or take the discount code out. This counts for a message set to Draft as well, the same as every other check on a step's email.

An email that gives a discount away is checked here as well, unless its message is set to Draft. The row names the step when:

• the discount is no longer in your store — choose another discount;
• the discount has ended — choose another, or give it a new end date in Shopify;
• each person gets their own code and neither the code nor the discount has a last day — choose how many days each code works, or give the discount an end date in Shopify;
• the email gives away the discount's own code and no usable code is chosen — choose a code in the email;
• the automation starts when someone receives a discount code — each email would start it again, so start it with something else or take the discount out of the email.

A discount that Shopify is testing on only some shoppers (a rollout) is not refused here, because it may have ended by the time somebody reaches the email; until it has, people wait at that email. Discounts says what happens then.

Before it has ever run, applying changes sends nothing

Nobody is inside an automation you have not started, so there is nothing to disturb and nothing goes out. The button says Apply changes, as it always does, and the question tells you what this one does:

Nobody is in this automation yet. This applies your working copy as the version that runs once the automation is enabled.

The first time you apply an automation’s changes, the dialog also offers Enable after applying, ticked, so one press both applies the changes and starts the automation. Untick it to apply now and enable later. A seat that cannot enable automations sees the box but cannot tick it, and applying changes leaves the automation Disabled.

That is the ordinary act of getting an automation ready, and applying changes (without enabling) is one of the things we can do for you while we are helping — see Draft and live, twice over, in the Draft, Manual and Live chapter. Once the automation has been enabled, applying changes alters mail that is already going out, and everything below applies.

If you have only added steps, nobody is disturbed:

Only adds steps. Nobody stops; people already in the automation continue and see the new steps when they reach them.

If you have only changed who starts it — ticked or unticked a place on a Welcome, or a form on a form start — no step has changed, and it says:

Only who starts it changes. Nobody already in it is affected.

After you apply, the line above the map says Changes applied. Only who starts it changed; nobody already in it is affected.

People partway through

When your changes add steps to an automation people are already moving through, the dialog says who they reach. It counts the people partway through, then splits them in two: those who have not reached the new step yet, and those who are already past it and skip it. For example:

• 143 people are partway through.
• 98 haven’t reached your new step “Thanks again” yet — they will get it if their path goes through it.
• 45 are already past it — they skip it.

The middle line says what the new step does to them: a live message they will get, a Manual one they will wait for you to send, a team alert means your team is emailed about them, and anything else they will go through. When your changes add more than one step, it names none of them — somebody can be ahead of one new step and past another — and says some of your new steps instead. A step added as a draft reaches nobody, so it is not counted.

If you have changed, moved or removed steps, the people already inside have to be moved onto the new version, and the automation sends nothing to them while that happens. The screen names how many people that is and how long it usually takes — normally under a minute.

Applying changes to an automation also applies the emails in its send steps, so what goes out is what you last saw.

That is worth reading twice, because it is the thing people get wrong. Editing a send step's email — even saving a version of it in the email editor — changes nothing that anybody receives. An enabled automation keeps sending the email as it was when changes were last applied, until you apply changes again. If a step's email has moved on without the automation, the step's panel says so in one amber line — Edited since you last applied changes — and applying changes is what makes it go out.

People who already finished

If anybody has been all the way through this automation before and you have added a step after the end, they come back for it on the automation's own timing — you are not asked. Say the automation ended with email 20 and you add a five-day wait and email 21: somebody who got email 20 a month ago gets email 21 now, and somebody who got it two days ago gets it in three days. The dialog says how many of each, for example:

It keeps the automation’s own timing: anyone already past the wait gets it now; everyone else gets it when their wait ends.

Only a step that sends something brings anybody back. A step you add as a draft, or a wait with nothing after it, brings nobody back, and the dialog says nothing about the people who finished. When the new steps begin with a split, the split is decided when they get to it, so the dialog counts somebody as coming back if any of its paths leads to an email or a text. If the next message ahead of them is a Manual one, they wait there for your team to send it, the same as anybody who reaches it:

Their next message waits for your team to send it.

If you would rather not reach back that far, enable the one switch:

Don’t send to people whose time has already passed

With it on and no number, anyone whose new email would already have gone out is skipped, and only the people still inside their wait get it. Type a number of days and only people whose time passed more than that many days ago are skipped. The dialog counts who is skipped before you apply changes. This part emails people, so it is shown only to somebody who can enable automations.

If you cannot enable automations, nobody who finished is brought back. You can still apply changes to anything that stays a draft — bringing people back is one of the two parts that email people, and neither is a piece this seat does. The other is enabling a step, under Draft and live, twice over in the Draft, Manual and Live chapter. The dialog says how many would come back anyway, because it is worth knowing:

They will not be emailed again — somebody who can enable automations can apply these changes to bring them back.

An imported automation with steps to set up

An automation imported from your old system arrives whole, not applied yet, even where this app could not import a step. A banner across the top of the map says so and says what is left to do:

Set up or delete the 3 marked steps and clear 1 note before you apply changes.

It starts Imported — not applied yet. and names the marked steps by number. Go to it takes you to the first one; press it again for the next.

A step that could not be imported is marked in its own place — an amber, dashed card whose kind reads Set up this step and whose status reads To set up. Open it and its panel tells you what it was, why it did not come over, and, for an email, the subject line it had and whether its design is in your templates:

This step did not come over from your old system, so it holds its place here and never runs. Set up the step in its place, then delete this one.

Replace with offers the kinds of step that fit what it was; press one and it takes the marked step's place, joined to everything around it. Or drag any step from the tray onto the marked card. Delete this step removes it instead.

Replacing a marked email with a Send email step opens the template picker with Use the design that came over first, and keeps the subject it had where this app can use it. Replacing it with anything else asks first, because that sends no email:

This step came over as an email. Putting “Wait” in its place sends no email, and its rule about who gets the email is not kept. The design stays in your templates.

A marked split keeps both of its paths under it, and only a Split can take its place, so the steps on those paths are kept.

If what starts it or the rule about who gets in could not be read, the banner says so in a line that begins Could not be imported:. Once you have dealt with it, press Done — clear this.

Nothing marked ever runs, and Apply changes stays shut until every mark is gone.

Enabling it

Applying changes does not start an automation. Enable does — or Enable after applying, the first time — and it asks once, naming what will happen and how many of the steps are live.

An automation whose changes have never been applied has nothing to run, and says so:

Apply changes first — there is nothing to run yet.

Enabling an automation is your store’s own act. Marketers, managers and owners can do it — the person who builds the automation is the person who starts it — and a viewer cannot. Nobody at Carpe Messaging can, either, however we are looking at your store to help you: we can shape what would be sent, and we can disable something for you, and that is where it stops. Disable takes no confirmation, because it is the act that stops mail rather than starts it — stopping mail is never harder than starting it.

A disabled automation admits nobody new. Anybody already inside is held where they stand, and carries on when the automation is enabled again; steps that fell due in the meantime can take up to an hour to go out.