Our Calendar System and Timeline Action Builder is a dynamic tool designed to automate and streamline communications and interactions with your Registrants and Leads. It uses a calendar-based, intuitive interface, allowing you to schedule a series of actions at specific times leading up to, during, and after your Event. It enables you to build out your Event in a way where it can be used once or forever evergreen!
In this tutorial, we will cover the basics of our Action Builder. The separate elements and how to set up your first actions!
At the base of your Timeline, you have a Calendar view by the month, by the week, or by the day (just like a Normal Calendar).
Utilizing the view you are comfortable with, you can click within a day to pull up the action builder.
Our action builder has 3 core parts. When, Who, and What.
When - Select the day and time in which you would like to schedule this action to occur. You can schedule the action to occur at either a Relative Time or Exact Time.
Relative Time is relative to WHEN your Event occurs (time of day), even if this action is being scheduled for days before or after the Event.
Exact Time sets the action to occur at an exact set time of day, regardless of the actual Event scheduled time itself. (Exact Time Actions are executed per account time zone selection, selectable within your account settings).
Best Practice: We recommend building your timeline to use 'Exact Time' outside the day of the actual Event, and day of the event using Relative Time.
This way, if you are scheduling your Timeline and Event to run at different times of day, a 4-hour before reminder will always trigger 4 hours before, regardless of the Event occurring at 11AM or 5PM! But that day before or day after reminder will always occur at the same time (Exact Time).
Who - This is where you select the Audience you are targeting with the action you are creating. If you are setting an action to occur BEFORE the event, you'll likely only see Registrants as a selection. If you create an action to occur AFTER your Event, by default, your Timeline will have options of Registrant, Attendee, and Non-Attendee.
If your Timeline has more than one Event within it when defining Who, you will also need to define the Event that you are targeting your action for.
Helpful Hint: Create Custom Audience sets to pinpoint target your prospects. Then, create Timeline Actions and send them communications speaking directly to them.
Since your action is targeting a specific audience, say Saw CTA Didn't Buy, you know what they did or didn't see, so you can tailor your omni-channel message to feel more conversational and less 'blanket messaging'. Learn more about Custom Audience Creation.
What - This is where you will select the Integration you are wanting to create an action with, as well as the Integration action itself.
Anything from Adding a Tag to your Contact, to sending a Live Chat message to all your Zoom Viewers, or delivering a Voice Mail message to your Cart Abandoners..
Once you've fully defined all the fields within the Action Builder, click on Create. You'll then see the action you've created within your timeline!
Some action types have time-limited interaction (meaning it can only be set in specific time-relation to your Event, IE, you can only send an 'Auto Chat to Audience' message DURING your Event. If you try to set it outside of your Event, it will not be accessible.
Duplicating an Action - Sometimes, it's quicker to duplicate an action and then adjust it for what you need than starting from scratch.
To do so, open a pre-existing action and simply click on the Copy icon. Once you do that, you'll now be within the 'new' action and can change the settings to your needs. Once you click Update, your new action will be saved to your Timeline.
Deleting an Action - To Delete an action, simply click on the action within the Timeline Builder and click on the trash can icon.
Changing Timeline Name or Description - To change your Timeline name or description, click the pencil icon next to the Timeline name, make your changes, and click on 'Update'.
