Maximizing Automation with Workflows

  • 6 October 2023
  • 11 replies
  • 439 views
Maximizing Automation with Workflows
Sam S
Rank
Userlevel 4
  • Sam S
  • Community Manager
  • 49 replies

Gone are the days of manually sending reminders, reconfirming bookings, and following up post-meeting! Be your own best friend and do yourself a fun favor— take advantage of Calendly Workflows.

 

Who can use this feature?

Calendly’s Workflows are available to users on our Standard, Teams, and Enterprise plans, as well as the legacy Professional plan. 

FYI: The Teams plan is available for both multi-user organizations as well as for individual use. To learn about the features in each plan, feel free to check out our pricing page!

 

Here are three of my favorite ways to use Workflows:

 

🧠️ Reminders

  • Reminder texts and emails can be programmed for both you as the host and for your invitees.
  • Reminder workflows help to reduce no-shows and allows you to send additional meeting prep materials, if applicable for the event type.
  • You can opt to include the reschedule/cancellation links in your reminders if you would like to provide invitees easy access.

👍️ Reconfirmations

  • Reconfirmation workflows can be used to request that your invitees reconfirm their booking with you so you don’t have to check in.
  • Reconfirmations will appear on your Scheduled Events page.

📅 Follow Ups

  • The magic of the post meeting thank you email can now be automated!
  • Follow up workflows can be used to send links to additional materials and resources, prompts to book another meeting, requests for meeting attendees to complete a survey, and more.
  • Things happen! If you have a no-show, simply mark the meeting as a no-show from your Scheduled Events page and any applicable follow up workflows will halt. 

 

Where are my Workflows sending from?

 

📧 Emails

As a default, Workflows emails are sent from notifications@calendly.com. If you would like your emails to come from your Gmail or Outlook email address, you can integrate your email accounts from the Integrations page. 

 

💡Tip: If you anticipate that your invitees may be confused by an email from notifications@calendly.com, you may want to consider integrating your email for workflows. 

  

📱SMS Texts

Our SMS text reminders are powered by Twilio. They are sent from a toll-free 10-digit number and are not able to be sent from a user's personal telephone number at this time. 

 

Where can I track my Workflows?

Once a Workflow runs on an event, you will be able to view the delivery timeline by navigating to your Scheduled Events page and clicking into the event details.

 

💡Tip: The Gmail/Outlook for Workflows integrations are not the same as your calendar connection. If you have your Google or Outlook calendar connected from your Calendar Connections page but are still not seeing your email as a ‘send from’ email when editing your Workflow (as shown below), you may still need to connect your email for Workflows from your Integrations page.

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Click below to be brought to the corresponding integrations page in your Calendly account:
Gmail for Workflows

Outlook for Workflows

 

How do you use Workflows already? How would you like to use Workflows? Share in the comments below! 👇

11 replies

Kelsi at Calendly
Rank
Userlevel 7

What a FANTASTIC post, Sam!!! I know I learn in visual ways - and you put all of this information together in such an easy-to-digest and visual manner. I love it! It’s obvious you put a lot of work into this. I love the emojis!

On the topic of Workflows - I included a video tutorial going over how to create and implement them, for anyone that might be new and confused, in this topic! 

 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
SchedulingSteve
Rank
Userlevel 3

One of the roadmap areas we’re exploring right now is to have Workflows trigger updates to other systems that our customers use (e.g., update a record in CRM). If this is of interest to anyone in the community, send me a message!

Stephen, Calendly's CPO
J

Do workflows override notifications? i.e. if I have a workflow for a 24 hour pre-meeting reminder email and also a notification, do they get it twice? Should I delete the notification and keep the workflow?

jillian
Rank
Userlevel 6

Hi @Joanne05801,

Workflows do not override notifications, so I would recommend approaching your communication and automation process with a plan if you can! Workflows can be set at the top level and applied across whichever events you select, which makes them great for multiple events and if you need to change a communication or automation across multiple events. Notifications (aka Communications) are at the event level and are good for things that are specific to that event.

You can learn more here: https://help.calendly.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051017814#automate-tasks-with-workflows-0-0

J

Thanks Jillian. If I have a workflow that has a reminder email, will that override the notification? Or do I also need a notification that is a reminder email?

Kelsi at Calendly
Rank
Userlevel 7

Thanks Jillian. If I have a workflow that has a reminder email, will that override the notification? Or do I also need a notification that is a reminder email?

To be clear - are you asking if a reminder email set up via Workflows will override a reminder email set up in your event type settings? If so the answer is no. These are two separate things and if both are set up, both will be sent out, which can be redundant! These are the settings within an event type: 

Event type settings - reminders

 

We suggest using Workflows for reminders or the reminders within an event type, not both!

Lastly, every booked event will result in a booking confirmation - either a calendar invitation or an email confirmation - based on the settings you choose. This cannot be turned off and these will always be sent out, regardless of any workflows or reminders you also set up. I hope this helps!

If this isn’t what you were asking, can you please clarify exactly what notification you are referring to when you ask if a workflow overrides it? 

 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
J

Is there a way to create a workflow to re-invite no-shows? I want to be able to mark someone as a no-show if they miss their appointment and have Calendly automatically send them a text/email asking them to rebook with my Calendly link. Is that currently possible? If not, is that a feature Calendly would consider implementing? 

Kelsi at Calendly
Rank
Userlevel 7

Hey there @JessicaG_CGCC - great question! At this time there is no way to do what you are asking via Calendly. However, this is an excellent feature request and I will make sure our product team sees it! While I cannot make promises re: when/if new features might be implemented, I can tell you the product team is always taking into consideration user feedback when improving Calendly. I will also look to see if there might be some way to use third party tools (like Zapier) to make something like this happen and get back to you tomorrow! 

Kelsi - Calendly Community
J

Hey there @JessicaG_CGCC - great question! At this time there is no way to do what you are asking via Calendly. However, this is an excellent feature request and I will make sure our product team sees it! While I cannot make promises re: when/if new features might be implemented, I can tell you the product team is always taking into consideration user feedback when improving Calendly. I will also look to see if there might be some way to use third party tools (like Zapier) to make something like this happen and get back to you tomorrow! 

 

Great! Thanks for the quick response @Kelsi at Calendly. I look forward to seeing new features that may address this issue in the future. If there is any way to get on a list of beta testers, our organization would be happy to volunteer. 

J

Great! Thanks for the quick response @Kelsi at Calendly. I look forward to seeing new features that may address this issue in the future. If there is any way to get on a list of beta testers, our organization would be happy to volunteer. 

jillian
Rank
Userlevel 6

Hi @JessicaG_CGCC!

So on the Zapier front, I think I might be the resident Zapier expert here (that’s what you get for being Zapier alumni!) so Kelsi asked me to tag in here.

At current, there’s no Zapier action or trigger related to Calendly no-show’s, but it’s a frequent request our Product team is very much aware of and I believe they’re actively digging into some aspects of improving workflows. However, one thing to explore would be exporting your invitee info from your Scheduled Events page into a Google Sheet on a regular basis and setting up a Zapier automation that is triggered on a ‘no-show’ tag being found. I’ve used a similar workflow for other tools and it’s actually pretty sweet! But I’ll admit a direct Zapier trigger or native workflow would be much sweeter. We’ll be sure to add your feedback on to the existing request.

As for the getting on a list of beta testers, we’re actually just working on getting this sub-community going now. Mind filling out this quick form so I can be sure to add you to the community when we’re ready?

Thanks!

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