Summary
Workflow entry criteria enable Workflow Templates to automatically be applied to Companies or End Users in response to changes in data
Workflow exit criteria can be used to automatically archive Workflows early and stop any remaining steps from happening if they are no longer required, again in response to data
You could either set both Workflow entry and exit criteria, just entry criteria, just exit criteria, or neither
Who is this article for?
Planhat builders (e.g. CS Ops), designing Workflow Templates for their team
Series
This article is part of a series on scheduling Workflows:
Workflow entry and exit criteria ⬅️ You are here
It is strongly recommended to read these in order, as they build in complexity, and later articles refer back to earlier ones.
Article contents
Click below to jump to the relevant section:
What are Workflow entry and exit criteria?
As part of our series on scheduling Workflows - configuring if and when steps happen - we're now turning to using data-based conditions. We're starting with the "highest" level - conditions on the whole Workflow.
Workflow entry and exit criteria are a mechanism to automatically apply a Workflow Template to a Company or End User, and then potentially stop it automatically too. They are therefore a way to control, by conditions you configure, if and when Workflow steps happen, in bulk.
The entry and/or exit criteria refer to data you have compiled and organised in Planhat, so this is an example of a way you can automatically act in response to data. You can either create rules here, or use filters that you have build in the Data Module. Filters can include multiple criteria, enabling very specific targeting.
As an alternative, it is possible to manually apply a Workflow Template and manually archive a Workflow, but the automation possible from setting up entry/exit criteria can enhance your speed and efficiency.
You'll see Workflow entry and exit criteria in the "Settings" tab of a Workflow Template:
Workflow entry criteria are used to automatically apply a Workflow template to a Company or End User
Workflow exit criteria can automatically archive the Workflow and cancel any remaining steps
You don't have to add both entry and exit criteria - you could use one or the other. For example:
You want entry criteria to automatically apply an Onboarding Project to new Companies, but once applied, the whole Workflow should always be completed, so you won't want to exit early
You want to manually apply a Sequence to a group of End Users to announce the launch of a new feature, but then you set exit criteria so the Workflow stops sending reminder emails to End Users who have started using the new feature
As you can see in the screenshot above, if you do apply both entry and exit criteria, they can each look at different data points.
Why use Workflow entry and exit criteria?
Having Workflows automatically apply and/or archive means that you don’t need to manually keep track of which End User or Company you want to take action with, or remember to manually apply the Workflow at an appropriate time, or worry about annoying customers with steps that are no longer necessary.
Some typical use-case examples are:
All new End Users are added to a Sequence that sends a welcome email and then a series of emails introducing them to different parts of your product
You can be more granular with your targeting - e.g. have a specific welcome Sequence for End Users who are tagged as Admins, with additional setup info
All new Companies are added to an "Onboarding" Project
This can be more tailored - for example, you could have separate onboarding Projects for different Company segments/tiers (e.g. Small Business, Mid-Market and Enterprise), and include this in the entry criteria
End Users who haven't completed a specific action in your product (e.g. logged in, to tried a new feature) are added to a Sequence to educate them, and as soon as they use it they are exited from the Sequence so they don't get any more reminders
Companies whose subscription expires in 90 days enter a Project with tasks for the CSM to discuss and organise the renewal, and once the renewal is confirmed, any remaining (unnecessary) steps are cancelled
🚀 Pro tip: Even if you're planning for all steps within a Workflow to be completed, it can be important to set exit criteria. If you complete a Workflow by marking a task step as complete (so this is most common in a Project), you'll see a pop-up message guiding you to manually archive the Workflow, but if the final step is an email that's automatically sent, that wouldn't apply. If you have a Sequence of emails and you would like it to auto-archive when complete, you can create a filter on the End User model (similar to the one shown below), and use that as your exit criteria.
Click the image to view it enlarged
Note that entry and exit criteria are ways to apply the same rule-based conditions to all steps within a Workflow. If you would like to apply different rules/conditions to activate different steps, you can accomplish that by group conditions or step conditions, which we’ll have a look at in later articles in this series.
How to set up Workflow exit/entry criteria
"ENTER WHEN" and "EXIT WHEN" are part of the "Settings" tab of each Workflow Template:
If you click on the "+" button for either, you have the options "Entered filter", "Left filter", and "Rule":
Rules can refer to fields (e.g. Company Tier is SMB) or calculated metrics (time-series data) created in your tenant (e.g. total reports downloaded in the last 30 days).
You can add multiple rules, but they always use an "OR" ("ANY") logic, i.e. the overall condition is considered met (so the Workflow is applied or archived) if rule 1 OR rule 2 is met, rather than rule 1 AND rule 2.
Therefore, if you want to apply multiple rules at the same time (e.g. Company Tier is SMB AND Company Phase is Onboarding), you should create a filter with those rules combined, and then set up the Workflow entry or exit criteria using that filter.
To apply a filter here, first create it in the Data Module. Make sure the filter is created on the model (Company or End User) that matches the model of your Workflow. As well as being able to combine rules, another advantage of building a filter is that you can also use it elsewhere in Planhat.
Remember that you can use calculated metrics in filters. This is a great way to incorporate product usage data into your entry and exit criteria. For example, if you have a Sequence with the goal of getting an End User to carry out a specific action within your product (e.g. create a report), you could set the exit criteria so that the Sequence automatically ends as soon as they achieve this, cancelling any remaining emails that would be unnecessary and annoying for the End User. Depending on how you set your filters up, this could be entering or leaving a filter:
When working with exit criteria, make sure you set what you want the "archive action" to be - what should happen to any remaining steps when the Workflow is archived.
For further discussion of the "Settings" tab of Workflow Templates, see this article.
Next ...
Now you're familiar with using Workflow entry and exit criteria to activate and/or deactivate a whole Workflow, the next stage is to look at group conditions to activate/deactivate a group of steps.