Triggers and actions help you easily automate parts of your workflows and set up custom notifications based on the logic of “When X happens, and Y conditions apply, do Z.”
Creating such rules helps you automate repetitive tasks and increase your efficiency. You can focus on the important things while the trigger and action rules you've set up take care of the mundane tasks, and the notifications will inform you when something requires your input or action.
To inspire you to create your triggers and actions:
- As a Specialist, you can get notified when your task deadline/status/description changes, your event details are updated, etc.
- If you're a Manager, you can set up rules to be notified when larger sales deals come in or are confirmed, projects are completed, invoices are paid, etc. The possibilities are almost endless, as the dynamic nature of triggers and actions allows you to be very granular in every step of the rule setup.
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1. Rule list view and templates
The rule list view is under Settings > My Settings > Triggers and actions. It has three sections: My rules, Templates, and Other rules.
The My rules section contains all the active, inactive, and suspended rules you've created. You can view and modify any rule by clicking on its name.
The toggle on the right side shows the current state of the rule:
- 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 grey and can't be enabled – the rule was active before but is now paused by the system because some change in the site setup affected the rule; change the related site settings to enable it again.
- For example, your site has the Use shipment date for quotes and orders enabled and you've set up a rule to notify you if the shipment date on a quote is changed. Someone changed this setting, disabling your rule, so you have to fix the settings to enable the rule again.
The Templates section includes ready-made rules you can activate as they are or use as a basis for your rules.
To turn a template into an active rule:
- Click on the template name
- Rename it and make any other modifications you want (for example, you may want to change who gets notified)
- Click Add rule to save your rule.
Once added, the rule will appear in your active rule list, and the template will remain on the template list for future use.
The Other rules section at the bottom shows rules created by others that also notify you. These rules can be modified only by their owners.
The default system notifications are also shown here, and you can recognize them using the Scoro logo. Only site administrators can modify or disable/enable them.
If you don't want to be notified about rules set up by someone else, you can:
- contact the rule owner to ask them to remove you from the rule, or
- hover over the rule and click the crossed bell icon to mute the notifications for this rule. Click it again to unmute it and resume the notifications.
2. Creating rules from scratch
In short, this is how you create a rule:
- Click the +New button in the top left corner
- Give your rule a descriptive yet compact name to help you understand exactly what it does
- Keep the Active toggle enabled if you want to enable the rule right after saving it; alternatively, disable it if you'd like to save the rule as a draft and finish and enable it later
- Build the rule setup by selecting:
- the trigger event
- the trigger conditions
- the action.
Let's go through the process of building the rule setup with the following example rule: "When a task deadline is modified, or its status is changed, and I am the assignee, then notify me in Scoro."
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 |
There's a separate tab for each of the above sections. Now, let's go through each of them one by one!
2.1. Select the trigger event
In the first tab, you select the trigger event - the action that starts the whole flow. Think of the trigger event as a precondition - if that event doesn't happen, the rule won't run.
Start by choosing the item that should be monitored for changes (e.g., a task, a project, a quote, etc.).
Choose the activity - created, modified, or deleted - that should trigger the rule.
If you choose modified as the activity, you have two options here:
Option 1: If you want the rule to run only when a specific item value or field is modified (e.g., status, deadline, assignee), add a condition group. You can add 3 condition groups, with up to 5 conditions in each.
Option 2: To run the rule whenever the item is modified in any way, skip adding the condition groups and proceed to the next step.
Let’s return to our example rule, where the bolded part is the trigger event: "When a task deadline is modified, or its status is changed, and I am the assignee, then notify me in Scoro."
Here's how the settings would look:
Once you've set up the trigger event, click on Next step -> or on the second tab to set the trigger conditions.
2.2. Select the trigger conditions
This is an optional step where you can add the trigger conditions to help you narrow down your choice from any item (task, quote, project, etc.) to a more particular one by specifying its creator, assignee, status, deadline, or other criteria.
Trigger conditions are postconditions by their nature - meaning they have to be true or remain true after the trigger event has happened, otherwise, the finalautomated rule action won't happen. This is because Scoro checks this additional condition layer only after the trigger event itself has already taken place.
Let’s look at our example rule, where the bolded part is the trigger condition: "When a task deadline is modified, or its status is changed, and I am the assignee, then notify me in Scoro."
With these settings, 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.
To save time and avoid manually adding conditions, you can use the Link to bookmark option to apply filters from your bookmark as conditions. For rules created this way, the final action will happen in two cases:
- an item moves under a bookmark as a result of the trigger event
- Example: You want to build a rule that notifies you whenever a quote gets confirmed. You have a bookmark called Confirmed quotes that includes all the quotes with ‘Confirmed’ status. You can link this bookmark to your rule to get notified whenever someone changes the status of a quote, and it moves under the Confirmed quotes bookmark.
- Example: You want to build a rule that notifies you whenever a quote gets confirmed. You have a bookmark called Confirmed quotes that includes all the quotes with ‘Confirmed’ status. You can link this bookmark to your rule to 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 want to set up a rule that notifies you whenever a confirmed quote is modified in any way. You have a bookmark called Confirmed quotes that includes all the quotes with ‘Confirmed’ status. Set your rule as shown below, and you will 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 case when you wouldn't get this notification would be when someone changed the quote status as well.
- Example: You want to set up a rule that notifies you whenever a confirmed quote is modified in any way. You have a bookmark called Confirmed quotes that includes all the quotes with ‘Confirmed’ status. Set your rule as shown below, and you will 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 case when you wouldn't get this notification would be when someone changed the quote status as well.
Select the action
In the last tab, you choose the action to perform automatically as a result of the trigger event. You can add up to 10 actions per rule.
First, select an action from the dropdown menu:
- Send an e-mail + user(s) or group(s) - an e-mail is sent out to the selected user(s) or dynamic groups
- Notify in Slack + users(s) or group(s) - a Slack notification is sent to the selected user(s) or dynamic groups
- Notify in Scoro + user(s) or group(s) - a notification is sent to the selected user(s) or groups in Scoro. Note that you can also select dynamic groups here
- 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.
You can also enter a custom title for the notification.
Let’s return to our example, where the bolded part is the subsequent action: "When a task deadline is modified, or its status is changed, and I am the assignee, then notify me in Scoro."
This is what you would select. Here, we also entered a custom title.
Once you've finished building the rule, ensure the Active toggle is switched on, and click Save to activate it.
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.
3. 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 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.