Triggers and actions – from 23.5 – Scoro Help Center

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What are triggers and actions?
Rule list view and templates
How to create rules from scratch?
Webhooks

What are triggers and actions?

With the help of triggers and actions, you can easily automate parts of your workflows and set up custom notifications to stay on top of your daily tasks. You can create different rules with the simple logic of "When this happens and these conditions apply, then do that". It helps you to automate repetitive tasks and save time. This in turn increases your own efficiency as you can focus on the important tasks while automations take care of the mundane ones.

You can count on the notifications to inform you when something requires your input or action. Here are just a few examples to get you inspired:

As a specialist, you can get notified when:

your task deadline/status/description changes;
your event details are updated, etc.

As a manager, you can get notified when:

largers sales deals come in or get confirmed;
project is completed;
invoice is paid, etc.

With Scoro’s advanced triggers and actions, the possibilities are almost endless as the dynamic nature of the feature allows you to be very granular in your rule setup.

Rule list view and templates

You can find Triggers and actions under Settings > My Settings > Triggers and actions.

The My rules section gives you an overview of all the active, inactive and suspended rules created by you. You can view and modify any rule by clicking on its name.

Toggle is green – the rule is actively running in the background
Toggle is grey – the rule is in draft mode and does not run actively
Toggle is disabled – the rule was active before but is now paused by the system because some change in the site setup affected the rule

The Templates section includes ready-made rules that you can activate or use as the basis for your own rules. Using the templates is the easiest way to get started with ‘Triggers and actions’. To turn a template into an active rule, simply click on the template name, re-name it as you wish or make any other modifications you want (for example, you may want to change who gets notified), then save it. After saving, the rule will be added to your active rule list and the template will remain in the template list for re-use.

The Other rules section at the bottom shows you rules created by others that notify you as well. This list is just for information purposes and you cannot modify any of the rules listed here as you are not the owner of these rules.

How to create rules from scratch?

To create a rule from scratch, click the +New button in the top left corner. Name your rule. We recommend naming your rules as descriptively but as compactly as possible, so it’s easier to keep track of them. For example: “My project status changed, notify me”.

Let’s break down the rule creation step by step by using a simple example rule. Let’s say you want to create the following rule:

"When a task deadline is modified or its status is changed and I am the assignee, then notify me in Scoro."

You can build this rule up in three steps – for this, you have three different tabs that act as building blocks:

So we can break down our example rule as follows:

1.	The trigger event	"When a task deadline is modified or its status is changed..."	= WHEN the action can happen
2.	The trigger conditions	"…and I am the assignee…"	= IF the action can happen
3.	The action	"...then notify me in Scoro."	= WHICH action happens

Step 1: the trigger event

In the first tab you select the trigger event. The trigger event is the action that starts the whole flow – when some item in Scoro is either created, deleted or modified in some way. An example of a simple trigger event: a task deadline is modified. You can think of it as a precondition – if that event doesn’t happen, nothing happens, the rule won’t run.

Tip! When building rules, approach them from the top down – start from the bigger central action and then move on to details. So in this first step think through the following:

What type of an item is the central piece of your rule that should be monitored for changes? For example, a task, a project, a quote, etc. Choices are listed on the left.
What is the activity that should trigger the rule? You can choose between created, deleted and modified. The choices appear as soon as you’ve picked an item from the list.

If you choose modified as the trigger event – should the rule be triggered when the item is modified in any way? Or do you want the rule to run only when some specific value or field is modified, such as deadline, status, description or assignee? If you want to trigger the rule only when some specific fields are modified, add condition rows or groups to your trigger event. Each condition group can contain up to 5 conditions and there can be 3 condition groups in total.

For example:
1. rule runs whenever a task is modified:

2. rule runs whenever task deadline or status is modified:

Let’s return to our example rule:

"When a task deadline is modified or its status is changed and I am the assignee, then notify me in Scoro."

The bold part is the trigger event, so this is what you need to set up in the first step. Pick an item from the list on the left (task), then select the action (modified) and the specific fields (deadline, status).

Step 2: the trigger conditions

In the second tab you select the trigger conditions. Trigger conditions are the additional conditions that need to be met in order for the automatic action to take place. These help you narrow down your choice from any task/project/quote etc to a more particular task/project/quote etc by specifying its creator, assignee, status, deadline,or some other criteria. This is an optional layer.

Note! Trigger conditions are postconditions by their nature – this means they have to be true or remain true after the trigger event has happened, otherwise the final action will not be performed. This is because Scoro checks this additional condition layer only after the trigger event itself has already taken place.

How does it work exactly? Let’s take a concrete example: “When project status changes (trigger event) and I am a member of that project (trigger condition), notify me in Scoro.” Scoro does not automatically monitor projects you are a member of for a status change, but rather it monitors all projects across the site for a status change. And once it detects a project status change, only then does it check if any of the additional conditions are also true – such as you being a member of that project. If it’s a match, it proceeds to perform the necessary action.

Let’s return to our example rule:

"When a task deadline is modified or its status is changed and I am the assignee, then notify me in Scoro."

The bold part is the trigger condition – the additional layer you need to set up in the second tab. Add a field (assignee) and specify the value (me). So that means whenever a task deadline is modified or its status changes, Scoro will check if you are also an assignee of that task before deciding whether to send out a notification or not.

Example_trigger_event_setup.png.png

You can also make use of bookmarks as predefined sets of conditions. Use the Link to bookmark option. This will simply save you time as you don’t have to add conditions manually – the filters you’ve applied in your bookmark will translate into conditions. The final action will be performed if:

an item moves under a bookmark as a result of the trigger event
- Example: You have a bookmark called Confirmed quotes that includes all the quotes with ‘Confirmed’ status. You want to set up a rule that notifies you whenever a quote gets confirmed. You can set up the rule like this with the help of the bookmark:
  
  Now you get notified whenever someone changes the status of a quote and it moves under the Confirmed quotes bookmark.
an item was already under the bookmark and remains under the bookmark after the trigger event
- Example: You have a bookmark called Confirmed quotes that includes all the quotes with ‘Confirmed’ status. You want to set up a rule that notifies you whenever a confirmed quote is modified in any way. You can set up the rule like this:
  
  Now you get notified whenever someone changes any aspect of any confirmed quote because the quote itself would still remain under the Confirmed quotes bookmark after the change. The only scenario where you wouldn’t get a notification is when someone changes the quote status itself so that it’s no longer a Confirmed quote.

Step 3: the action

In the last tab, you choose the action that is performed as a result. You can add up to 10 actions per rule.

Notify in Scoro + user(s)
- When the rule conditions are met, a notification is sent out to the selected user(s) or groups in Scoro. Note that you can also select dynamic groups here.
Send an email + user(s)
- When the rule conditions are met, an e-mail is sent out to the selected user(s) or dynamic groups.
Trigger a webhook + URL
- When the rule conditions are met, a webhook is triggered. You can read more about the webhooks in the next paragraph.

This one is quite straightforward, so let’s return to our example:

"When a task deadline is modified or its status is changed and I am the assignee, then notify me in Scoro."

The bold part is the subsequent action that needs to be defined in this part.

To summarize, this is what we covered in three steps:

1.	The trigger event	"When a task deadline is modified or its status is changed..."
2.	The trigger conditions	"…and I am the assignee…"
3.	The action	"..then notify me in Scoro."

If you are unsure about any aspect of the rule setup, we recommend having a closer look at rule templates to understand how these rules are built up.

Webhooks

In addition to automatic notifications, you can also trigger custom workflows with the help of webhooks.

The most common way is to use Zapier. You can use Zapier either to connect Scoro with other apps, such as Slack or Google Sheets, or to create automations within Scoro via Zapier.

To trigger a workflow within Scoro via Zapier, you need to create a rule that triggers a Zap. For example: “When a quote is sent out to the client from Scoro, change the quote status in Scoro.” For this, you would need to do two things:

create a rule in Scoro that says if any quote is modified (trigger event) and its value is subsequently ‘is sent’ (trigger condition), then trigger a webhook (action);
create a Zap that will be triggered from that webhook and changes the status of the quote.

Webhooks need to be valid because Scoro checks them upon saving. Webhooks send out data once in a minute, so be aware of slight delays.