WORKFLOW MANUAL
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: PRE-WORKFLOW
Before the Building - 1
Applying Workflows In Dubsado - 3


CHAPTER 2: ACTIONS - 5
Change Project Status - 6
Add Tag - 7
Send Email - 8
CHAPTER 4: TIPS & TRICKS - 28
Send Form - 9
Office Hours - 29
Create To-Do - 12
Workflow Overview Chart - 30
Send Contract - 14
Update Job Workflows - 32
Send Primary Invoice - 15
Editing Workflows In a Project - 33
Create Invoice - 16
Workflows Errors - 34
Activate/Deactivate Portal - 17
Pause Workflow - 18
Hold Actions Until - 19
CHAPTER 5: SITUATIONAL
APPLICATION - 35
CHAPTER 3: TRIGGERS - 20
Workflows & Client Portals - 36
Relative Vs. Fixed - 21
If/Then Moments - 37
After Workflow Started - 22
Starting Halfway through Workflow - 40
"Before/After" the Job "Start/End"
Date - 23
After Form is Completed - 24
After Invoice Paid in Full - 25
After Contract Signed By Client - 25
After Scheduled Payment is
Completed - 26
After All Previous Actions
Complete - 27
 1
BEFORE THE BUILDING

One of the biggest features in Dubsado is the ability to streamline

your process with the Workflow feature. Along with that come Pros
and Cons. The Pros being: structure, organization and time-saving.
The Cons being: the time spent building the structure and
organization. Because the workflow is reliant on your Content being
in your brand first, it’s important to take the time to build organized
and quality content Before the Building. Think of the workflow as a
60” Plasma flat screen in your living room. It’s the flashiness, the style
and the extras. But first, you must build the living room for the TV to
go in!

PRE-WORKFLOW CHECKLIST

Before going into Dubsado and building out your actions right from
the start; try running through these tasks first! It will provide much
more clarity when constructing your actions and triggers.

1. Write out your Process. (Paper, sticky notes, Word doc.)

2. Highlight ALL Content that needs to be built in Templates. (Any
forms you have - write a Canned Email to match it)
3. Build Form Templates (and Packages for Proposals)
4. Build Canned Email Templates
5. Build Payment Schedules (Optional)
6. Build Job Tags (Optional)
7. Build Project Statuses (Optional)

Although this can seem like a lot of work that needs to be done pre-
workflow, making sure these are done first will save you a lot of extra
time when actually building your actions!

 2
EXAMPLE

 3
APPLYING WORKFLOWS IN DUBSADO
One thing that can help the planning stages of workflows, is
understanding how/where workflows can be applied in the system.
There are 2 ways you can have a workflow start. Automated or
Manual. Within the Projects tab, you can easily apply a workflow
manually by clicking on the Workflows tab in the Project.

The other option is the Automated route. This is where you can really
start planning out different workflow ideas! With the Lead Capture
form in Dubsado, you can have different workflows start based off of
an interest that they have. Let’s say I’m a photographer and I want a
different workflow template to start based off of what service they
are interested in (Headshots, Wedding, Sporting Event or Newborn).
With the Workflow Element in the Lead Capture, you have this
option! You can match up a workflow with an answer!

 4
If you are in a business where you want to apply the same workflow
regardless of who fills out a contact form, you can apply a “General”
workflow in the Settings tab on the Lead Capture.

 5



ACTIONS
 6
CHANGE PROJECT STATUS

If you have Project Statuses (Funnels) created in the Projects

section, you can have the workflow automatically move
your project into a new status. In this case, let’s say I’ve just
booked a consultation with this client, and now I want the
workflow to move them into the “Consultation Booked”
status. When you are developing your Project Statuses,
think of creative ways that you can have the workflow keep
your clients organized on where they are in your process!
 7
ADD TAG

Based off the Job Tags that you have created, you can have
the workflow automatically Tag a certain project. For
example: On the Lead Capture form, if a prospective client
says they are interested in Newborn photography, and the
Newborn workflow begins, you can have the Workflow tag
that project as a Newborn session automatically!
 8
SEND EMAIL


By clicking the ‘Email to Send’ dropdown, it will bring up a list of all

of the Canned Email templates that you have saved in your brand.
This is where having pre-made templates can really speed up the
process. You can choose from the list and load it into the action.
You do have the ability to type in the email body as well, however
those will not get saved as canned responses, it will just be applied
to that workflow.

**When you are using the option “Send Email”, this should just be
for sending Text Only emails. If you are wanting to send out any
email with an attached form, you will use the other Actions that are
available.
 9
SEND FORM


“Send Form” will be the action you will use if you are wanting to send
out a Sub-Agreement, Questionnaire or Proposal. Contracts are their
own separate entity, so there is a separate action for those. You will
first choose which form you want to and then choose which email you
want to accompany that form.

**When you are building your content, it will make your workflow
building much more efficient to have an email to match each form.
That way you can choose your form, and then just choose the email to
match it!
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FORM OPTIONS

Send Email and Apply to Portal - This is the standard way of

sending forms to clients. Anytime that a form is sent to a client it
automatically uploaded to the portal. This action will both send it
via email and be available to the client in Portal.

Apply to Portal - This option is perfect if you are wanting to have the
workflow automatically upload forms into the portal for you!
Because each email can only have one form per email, you can use
this option to send multiple forms to the portal first, then follow it up
with an email that has their Portal Link & Password in it.

Apply to Job Only - This option is perfect

if you have customizations that you need
to make to a form and just want a fresh
template added to the job for you to edit.
This option will not send the form to the
client via email, or upload it to the Portal,
just add it under the FORMS tab within
the Project.
 11
FORM LINKS


In order for the client to have a button to click on that links to the
form you’ve added, you will need to make sure you have a FORM
LINK in the body of the email. Those brackets will generate a
button in the email that links up to whichever form you have
chosen in the ‘Form Template to Send’ dropdown. You are only
able to send one form per email that generates the button. To find
the Form Link, head to Smart Fields >> Link >> Form Link.
 12
CREATE TO-DO


“To-Dos” are extremely valuable in your workflow building. They

can be used to send auto-reminders to yourself and for any manual
tasks that you have with clients (phone calls, meetings, general
project tasks). The Assigned User dropdown will give you a list of
every user that is assigned to your brand. Which ever user is in that
space will be who’s dashboard the task goes on. Even if you are the
only person in your brand, if you would like the task to show up on
your dashboard, you will need to select yourself, otherwise it
remains in the job.
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ADDITIONAL TO-DO OPTIONS

In the body of the To-Do section, one thing that can provide more
details on what you need to accomplish is the use of Smart Fields.
For example - If you need to call the client, instead of just writing
“Call client”, you can use Smart Fields to auto-populate the client’s
name. In the pictures below, you can see that on the task board, it
auto-populates the client info which makes looking for that
information much easier!

You also have the capability to have an email reminder get sent to
you when it’s time to complete the to-do. **If you have an additional
user in the Assigned User area
and the email box checked,
the Multi-User AND the brand
owner will both receive emails.
But the to-do will only appear
on the Multi-Users dashboard.
 14
SEND CONTRACT


The “Send Contract” option is for sending out your main/general

contract for the project. Whichever contract you send here will get
added in the main Contract dropdown area in the project. If you are
wanting to send a Sub-Agreement to the client to sign, then using
the “Send Form” option is best.

It is important to remember that in

the email going out, you will need
the Contract Link, in the body of
the email. That will give the client
a button to click on to access the
contract! You can find this link
under Smart Field >> Link >>
Contract Link.
 15
SEND PRIMARY INVOICE


For the “Send Primary Invoice” option, you will need to make sure
that you have the Invoice Link in the body of the email. That will
give a button for your client to click on that takes them directly to
the invoice.

Within each Project, you can

have multiple invoices. Make
sure that if you have multiple
invoices under one project that
you have the correct one
marked Primary. Just click the
INVOICES tab in the Project,
then click the Invoices sub-tab.
 16
CREATE INVOICE


You also have the option to

have the workflow just
create the invoice, or create
the invoice and then send it
out. Just make sure in the
email that you have the
Invoice Link in the body, so
that the client has a button
to click on to access the
invoice.
 17
ACTIVATE/DEACTIVATE PORTAL


The workflow has the ability to Activate or Deactivate the client’s

portal. By activating the Client Portal it will not send the client an
email with the link and password to the portal. That will need to be a
separate action in order to send them that information. If you are
wanting to have a password set up for the client, that will also need
to be done manually for right now. This action will just turn the Portal
“on or off” for the client.
 18
PAUSE WORKFLOW

Pausing the workflow will prevent the workflow from completing

any actions until it is manually un-paused. With the workflow
paused, there is also no way to force actions through. In order to
get the workflow up and running again, you will need to go into the
project, head to the WORKFLOWS tab and click the Yellow Pause
button. Just make sure it is green and “Active” again!



 19
HOLD ACTIONS UNTIL


If you are wanting all actions to hold until a certain milestone has
been completed, (contract signed, invoice paid, etc.) you can use
Hold Actions Until. The actions following this will hold until that
milestone has been completed. However, you will want to make
sure the actions following this are “after all previous actions
complete”. Any actions that have a fixed date or are looking at the
job date. Those actions are functioning on their own separate time
table, so the Hold will not take those into account. The example
below shows the correct way on how to use the Hold Actions
option.
 20



TRIGGERS
 21
RELATIVE VS. FIXED


RELATIVE - Relative dates are the best to use when setting up

general workflow templates you will use with every client. The
Relative option allows you to choose milestones specific to each
job for the Action to watch for. (Contract Signed, Invoice Paid, etc.)
The only time you will want to use Fixed dates when setting up
general templates for every client is for universal times (i.e. Holiday
Specials).

FIXED - Besides universal dates, Using a Fixed date should be used

for edits or customized sending on actions that need to go out on a
project to project basis. You can go into the workflow for the
project that needs something to go out, and choose what day and
time it needs to send. A great way to think about it is: You wouldn’t
want your welcome email to go out at 1:00 PM on 8/27 for every
single client that inquires.
 22
AFTER WORKFLOW STARTED


After Workflow Started is the best action to use for the beginning
actions in the workflow. With all of the triggers, anytime you have a
“0” as the number, it will mean immediately once that trigger has
happened. When you are setting up your workflow to begin after a
Lead Capture gets completed, After Workflow Started will be the
trigger to use. Once a Lead Capture gets completed, it will
automatically Add and Start the workflow for you in the new
project!
 23
”BEFORE/AFTER” THE JOB “START/END” DATE


25

These 4 triggers will specifically look at the dates assigned to the

project. With each project, there are two dates that the workflow
can look at. The Start Date and the End Date. You can use these
triggers to have actions happen on either side of these two dates.

If your project Start Date and End Date are the same then you can
use any combination of the triggers, as it’s functioning off of one
date.
 24
AFTER FORM IS COMPLETED


After Form Is Completed - This trigger should be used if you would

like the workflow to watch for a form that has been already sent in
the workflow to be completed. In order for this trigger to work
properly, you will need to select which form you want the workflow
to watch to get completed. In this example: the Pricing Proposal.
When you click the “Form to Watch” dropdown, it will give you a list
of all the forms that have been added to the workflow already.

**The two forms this trigger will not watch to get completed are
Contracts and Lead Capture forms. For Contracts, you will use “After
Contract Signed by Client” and for Lead Captures, you will use “After
Workflow Started”.
 25
AFTER INVOICE PAID IN FULL


After Invoice Paid In Full - This action will wait for the entire invoice
to get paid and then complete the action. When using this trigger
the invoice can either be paid electronically, or manually and it will
still complete the action.

AFTER CONTRACT SIGNED BY CLIENT

After Contract Signed By Client - This action will wait for the main/
general contract assigned to the project to be completed. This
does not include Sub-Agreements. You will use “After Form Is
Completed” for them.
 26
AFTER SCHEDULED PAYMENT IS COMPLETED


In order for you to start an action based off a certain payment

being made instead of the total invoice, you will need to first add a
payment schedule to the workflow. What this allows the workflow
to do is read the due dates in the payment schedule and start an
action based off that payment being made.

You will need to make sure you choose which payment you want
the workflow to watch for. Typically if you are wanting a “receipt
email” for your deposit, you can have it watch for your deposit to
get paid and send it out immediately like the example above.
 27
AFTER ALL PREVIOUS ACTIONS COMPLETE


If you are looking for actions to trigger one right after another, then
using this trigger will help facilitate that. What this trigger is
designed to do is to look at every action above it and make sure
they are all completed before that action triggers.

**It’s important to be as detailed as possible with the triggers that

you choose. Using “After All Previous Actions Complete” can
sometimes lead to triggers firing before you are wanting them to,
as it will send as soon as the step before it is completed.
 28



TIPS & TRICKS

 29

 OFFICE HOURS

A feature that is exclusive to workflow is being able to send out

auto-emails within the Office Hours that you designate. Some
business owners do not want their clients receiving emails in the
middle of the night, so to help keep the workflow from sending
things out at that time, if an action is set to trigger outside of these
hours it will wait until the Start Time and then send out the email.

This is only for auto-emails sending out to clients, this does not
affect adding tags, changing project statuses, creating to-dos, etc.
All of those are “in-house” actions.
 30
WORKFLOW OVERVIEW CHART

The Workflow Overview Chart will help you know where each
client is in a specific workflow at a glance. Easily see what has
happened or yet to happen. You are also able to check off to-dos
from this view, and edit actions right in place.

You can also hover over the actions to get more info about them and
click incomplete actions to force them or do more actions.

The workflow overview is optimized for large workflows as well. With

long workflows both horizontally and vertically, you will always know
what you are looking at since the X and Y axis are always in view.



 31
To get to the overview view, click into TEMPLATES >>
WORKFLOW and click VIEW to view that workflow overview:

OR you can go into a job or lead and under WORKFLOW there,

you can view all projects on that workflow:
 32
UPDATE JOB WORKFLOWS

You have the ability to bulk update workflows that are already applied to
projects. When you update the template workflow, you have the option to
update it on projects the workflow is already applied to. Adding actions,
deleting actions, editing emails, etc... Once you make any edit to the
TEMPLATE workflow an "Update Job Workflows" button will appear. When
this button is clicked, it will bulk update all jobs and leads with that
workflow on it with your new changes.
 33
EDITING WORKFLOWS IN A PROJECT

At the end of every step in a workflow that is applied to a project , there are 4
actions that you can do to change the course of that step.

**Any actions that are changed in this area will not affect your Master Template.

EDIT - If you are wanting to edit an action before it happens in the workflow, then
you can click the Edit button and make changes to that action. You can change the
day/time when that action will send, edit the email that will be going out, change
the to-do, etc. You do have the option to click Add Action and build on an existing
workflow. If the Workflow is already Completed, you can add an action and then
click the “Completed” button to make the workflow “Active” again.

REMOVE - If you would like to simply remove an action from the workflow,
you can click this button.

MARK COMPLETED - This button will just mark the action as complete, without
actually completing that action. This button is useful to check off anything that
has already been done that you don’t need to send out to the client, but still
want the visual of it being completed.

FORCE NOW - If you are wanting to force an action through that needs to go
out immediately, then this will be the button you will use. **The only time that
Force Now will not work is if the workflow is in the Paused status. You will need
to un-pause the workflow and then Force the action.
 34
WORKFLOW ERRORS

Common email errors are Invalid Header, or Authorization Failed, in this

situation, either verify the client’s email address or disconnect and reconnect
your email in the Settings menu.

Too Late to Send Action

If you apply a workflow that has an action set to trigger before the time when
the workflow was applied, that workflow will pause out and not run. Editing
the step in the workflow to have that action trigger at a later date or forcing
that action will have our system perform that action for you.

No Form Specified
If you have an action that is waiting for a certain form to get filled out, but you
have not specified which form in the “Form to Watch” dropdown, then you
will receive this error.

“Cannot read property date of undefined”

This error comes up when you are using the Smart Field for the payment
schedule date in an email sent through the workflow. These smart fields are
only supposed to be used for Payment Schedule reminder auto-emails, and
not for workflow emails. Instead of using the Payment Schedule category
smart fields, you will need to use Invoice Smart Fields.

Rate Limit Exceeded/Backend

If you have too many emails set to send at the same time, your email host
may prevent some emails from going out. Many email hosts have a limit on
how many emails can be sent out at once. Once this limit is reached, your
email will prevent emails from going out for a short amount of time. If you see
this error, you can retry those steps in each workflow to have the emails go
out.
 35



SITUATIONAL
APPLICATION
 36
WORKFLOWS & CLIENT PORTALS

Some clients will need to fill out a large number of forms, and the way that
Dubsado is set up, you can only send one form per email. If you are using
client portals, you can have the Workflow do most of the set-up and
sending!

Activate/Deactivate Portal - At any point in time during your workflow

process, you can have the workflow activate the client’s portal for you.

Form Options - Once the portal is activated, you can begin having the
workflow send your forms to the portal. Under the “Actions” chapter, when
you are choosing “Send Form” one of the form options is to have the form
get applied straight to the portal. When it comes to workflows, if you need
a large number of forms in the portal, you can set up each form with an
action to “Apply to Portal”

Send Portal Email - Once all of the content you need uploaded to the
portal has been completed, you can follow it up with an email going out to
the client with their Portal Link & Password!



 IF/THENS 37

OPTION #1
Create a “To-Do Checkpoint” that needs to be checked off before the next
action sends.

In this situation, I do not want the Questionnaire going out before I am

ready for it to send. This could be because of my availability, I need to
customize the email to match their inquiry better or they are not interested
in continuing. After the inquiry email goes out, there is a “to-do checkpoint”
that will need to be marked off before the 3rd action sends. Because the
3rd action has “after all previous actions are complete” as the trigger,
everything above that action must be completed (including the to-do
checked off)

When you are creating this for your workflow, first add a “to-do checkpoint”
and then add your auto email with the trigger - after all previous actions are
complete. If they don’t want to move forward or you or not available you
will not mark the to-do as complete and you can follow up manually.
 38
OPTION #2
Add the action “Pause Workflow” whenever there is an If/Then moment.

In this situation, similar to the first option, I do not want my Questionnaire

going out if the client is not ready or I am not available. Adding a Pause
whenever there needs to be a decision made on whether or not something
goes out will stop the workflow until you are ready to continue.

Using a Pause action will keep anything from going out as long as the
workflow is paused, so be aware that nothing can send out until this is
manually un-paused.

In the situation above, after the inquiry email goes out, all of the following
actions will immediately come to a stop while I determine if I’m available, if
I need to follow up, if the client is not interested or I need to make
customizations to the Questionnaire email going out. If I want the workflow
to continue to send out the following information, then I can un-pause the
workflow and it will resume.



 39
OPTION #3
Multiple Workflows in Phases



Another option is to create your workflows in phases. If you are not

wanting the client to get information that is only for booked clients, this is
a great way to navigate that! In this example, once the client has moved
through the entire “Onboarding” Workflow, I created a to-do to start the
next “phase” of my process, which is the “Booked” Workflow.
 STARTING HALFWAY THROUGH WORKFLOW 40
OPTION #1
Give yourself 15 minutes when the workflow starts to “Mark Complete” all
the actions that you do not need to send.



OPTION #2
41
Duplicate your current workflow and remove the actions that do not
need to go out, then apply the copy to the Project.



 FAQ

Can I apply multiple workflows to a project?

Yes! Under the Workflows tab within a project, you can add as many
workflows to the project as you like. However, workflows are not able
to talk to each other at the moment. They run on their own
independent track.

Does Dubsado offer sample workflow templates?

No. Workflows are such a robust feature and there are thousands of
different ways they can be built. Every business owner has their own
structure and their own way of how they handle their process, which
makes it tough to develop a “general template” that works for
everyone.

Does Dubsado offer workflow set-ups?

Yes! We can build your workflows for you if you are pressed for time
or if you are not wanting to try and piece things together on your
own. We charge $50/workflow.

I’m testing my workflow and filled out a questionnaire, but it’s not
advancing?
The workflow will only advance if you are filling out the
questionnaire as a client. You will need to make sure you are either
filling out the questionnaire in a Private Browser or through your
email (while not being logged into Dubsado).

Will a workflow still run if the Job Date has passed?

Yes! Workflows will run as long as the project is not archived/
deleted.

I’m pressing “Force Now”, but nothing is happening?
If the workflow is Paused either because of an action pausing it, or
because of an error, you will not be able to Force Now until it is un-
paused.

Can the workflow send me auto-emails?

Yes! When you are creating to-dos for yourself, just check the “Send
Email Reminder” box, and you will receive an email with the to-do in
the body.

Can an action in a workflow trigger another workflow?

No. Actions are only able to trigger other actions within that same
workflow template.

Can I have auto-emails go out to the Alt. Contact or a Multi-User?

No. The workflow auto-emails will only go out to the Primary Contact
on the project. Any emails that need to be sent to Alt. Contacts or
Multi-users can be set up as a to-do.

Is there a way to apply a workflow to Proposal or Questionnaire?

No. The workflow can only be applied to the Lead Capture form.

Can the workflow see my appointment dates for auto sending?

No, the workflow can only read job dates at the moment. When our
Scheduling feature is released, you will be able to!

Can I have an email auto-send when a client does not email me

back, or does not complete a form?
No, within the Workflow we do not have “negative logic” built into
our triggers yet. 

Am I able to have an action send based off of two triggers?
No, you are only able to choose one per action. Hold Actions Until is
a great way to have multiple milestones be recognized before
actions send. “Hold Actions Until Contract is Signed” followed by
“Hold Actions Until Invoice is Paid”.

What’s the difference between workflows and task boards?

Workflows are designed to send things out or complete actions
based off of a timed sequence/certain milestones happening. Task
boards are designed for task management and resemble more of a
manual process. Although you can assign due dates for tasks, they
are not able to trigger based off of certain items happening.

What’s the difference between Pause and Hold Actions Until?

Pausing will shut down the entire workflow until you manually go in
and un-pause it. When the workflow is paused nothing can go out.
Hold Actions Until will just wait for certain milestones to happen
before the rest of the workflow continues. (Hold Actions Until -
contract is signed)

Can the workflows and task boards talk to each other?

No. The workflows and task boards work independently of each
other.

Can I apply the workflow to a client portal or can the clients see the
workflow?
No. Workflows are only visible to the admin and assigned users on
the project.