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An automation (also called a journey) is a flow that runs continuously. A trigger decides who enters and when. The steps after it send email, wait, branch or update the contact. For a one-time send such as a newsletter, use a campaign instead. Open Automations from the sidebar. The page has two tabs:
  • My Journeys lists your automations. You can search them, filter by All, Draft, Active or Paused, and sort them by name or date. Each card has actions to clone or delete the journey (see Delete below for when a journey can be deleted).
  • Template Gallery holds ready-made flows. Built-in templates carry a Built-in badge. Examples include Welcome Series, Onboarding Drip, Re-engagement, Win-Back Campaign, Abandoned Cart Recovery, Post-Purchase Thank You, Order Confirmation, NPS Survey, Birthday / Anniversary and Event Reminder Series.

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Create an automation

You can start in three ways:

From scratch

Click Create Journey. An empty journey opens in the editor.

From a template

On Template Gallery, click Use Template on a card. You get a draft copy to change as you need.

Describe with AI

Click Describe with AI, say what should happen and to whom, then click Create draft.
Describe with AI always creates a Draft. Nothing runs until you check the steps and activate the journey. Example brief: “When someone joins the Newsletter list, send a welcome email, wait 2 days, then send our best tips. If they don’t open, wait a week and try once more.”
When you approve an AI campaign plan that has follow-up emails, the AI Strategist sends emails 2 and later through an automation it creates for you. That automation appears in My Journeys like any other.

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Build the flow

1

Add a trigger

Drag a trigger from the Step palette onto the canvas. A journey has exactly one trigger. See Automation triggers.
2

Add steps

Drag actions, conditions and Join / Merge nodes onto the canvas. Connect each one to the step before it. You can also hover over a connection and use Insert step here. Every path ends at the Exit node, which is always on the canvas and can’t be removed. See Automation steps.
3

Configure each step

Click a node to open its settings. Nodes that are missing required settings show Needs configuration.
4

Set journey settings

Click Settings to choose the Enrollment frequency, Exit criteria and Conversion goal (see below).
5

Save and validate

Click Save, then Validate. Click an issue in the list to jump to the node it’s about.
6

Activate

Click Activate. A journey that still has errors won’t activate. You’ll see “Cannot activate: N validation errors found”.
The canvas toolbar has Undo (Ctrl+Z), Redo (Ctrl+Shift+Z), Search nodes (Ctrl+F), Auto layout, Fit view, zoom controls, and Lock canvas.

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What validation checks

Validation blocks activation when the journey:
  • has no trigger, or has more than one
  • has no action step
  • has a node that nothing leads to
  • contains a loop
  • has an If/Else with no branch connected, or a step with more than one incoming connection that doesn’t go through a Join
  • has a step that isn’t set up, for example a Send Email step without a template or a subject line
  • has two Wait steps in a row, or a Wait at the end of a path
Validation also gives warnings that don’t block activation: two Send Email steps back to back with no wait between them, and an If/Else branch with no action steps.

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Journey settings

While a journey is active, its settings are locked. To change them, pause the journey or create a new version.

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Run, pause and stop

  • Pause freezes the journey. No new contacts enter, and contacts already inside stay where they are until you click Activate again. You can edit a paused journey.
  • Stop is permanent. A stopped journey can’t be reactivated; to relaunch, create a new version. When you stop, choose what happens to contacts still in the journey:
    • Let contacts finish (recommended): they complete it, and then the journey archives itself.
    • Remove contacts now: they leave immediately without completing the remaining steps.
  • Delete is available for draft journeys, and for paused journeys that no contact has entered yet. It removes all steps, settings and history, and needs the Settings: write permission (Owners and Administrators). To retire a journey that has run, Stop it instead. A stopped journey keeps its analytics.

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Versions

A live version can’t be edited. To make changes:
  1. Click New version. This creates a draft copy, for example v2. If a draft already exists, the editor opens that draft instead.
  2. Edit and validate the draft.
  3. Click Activate this version. In Replace the live version?, choose Let contacts finish (recommended) or Remove contacts now for contacts still in the old version.
After the switch, new contacts enter the new version only. With Let contacts finish, the old version shows as Finishing until its last contact leaves, and then it archives. An API-event journey keeps the same trigger key across versions, so your integration doesn’t need to change.
Your plan limits how many automations can be active at once. All versions of one journey count as a single automation.

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Test and measure

  • Simulate runs a dry run for a sample contact. Enter an Email * and optionally a first and last name, then click Run Simulation. The result shows the path the contact would take and which branch each condition picks. Path analytics lists every possible path and the most likely one. No real emails are sent.
  • Analytics shows per-step counts (entered, completed, failed) and Email analytics for each send step: sent, delivered, unique opens and clicks, failures, and sends over the last 30 days. If you set a conversion goal, analytics also shows how many enrolled contacts converted.
  • Logs (Activity log) lists each contact’s run with its status (active, completed or failed), the step they are at now, and the error if a step failed.

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Troubleshooting

Check that the journey is Active and that the trigger is set up (see triggers). Every trigger enters only active contacts, and a double opt-in signup enters when they confirm. Contact Added to List fires immediately. Segment, schedule and engagement triggers are checked every few minutes. With Once, a contact who has already been through the journey won’t enter again.
The contact was suppressed (for example unsubscribed), or your sending domain failed the deliverability check. The log entry gives the reason.
If your workspace has used its monthly email allowance, automation emails wait instead of being dropped. They resume when the allowance resets or your plan is upgraded.