Automation Thinking — Triggers, Actions, Conditions

The Automation Mindset

Before building any workflow, you need to think like an automation engineer. The core question is:

"What do I do repeatedly that follows a predictable pattern?"

If the answer is "a lot" — you're ready to automate.

Identifying Manual Processes

Look for these patterns in your daily work:

High-Value Automation Targets:

| Process | Frequency | Time Per Occurrence | Annual Cost | |---------|-----------|-------------------|-------------| | Welcome new leads | 5/day | 10 min | 200+ hours/year | | Follow up on proposals | 3/day | 15 min | 180+ hours/year | | Social media posting | 2/day | 20 min | 240+ hours/year | | Invoice sending | 10/week | 5 min | 40+ hours/year | | Report generation | 5/week | 30 min | 125+ hours/year |

The Automation ROI Formula:

ROI = (Time saved per week x Hourly rate x 52 weeks) - Setup time x Hourly rate

Example:

• Automating lead welcome: saves 50 min/day = 4.2 hours/week
• At $50/hour = $10,920/year saved
• Setup time: 2 hours = $100 cost
• ROI: 109x return

The Trigger-Action Model

Every automation follows this pattern:

TRIGGER → [CONDITION] → ACTION → [CONDITION] → ACTION → ...

Triggers (What starts it):

| Trigger Type | Example | |-------------|---------| | Event | New form submission, new payment | | Schedule | Every Monday at 9am | | Webhook | External service sends data | | Manual | You click "Run" | | Threshold | Metric exceeds a value |

Conditions (Decision points):

| Condition Type | Example | |---------------|---------| | IF/ELSE | If lead score > 50, route to sales | | AND | If premium AND active | | OR | If email OR phone provided | | Contains | If message contains "urgent" | | Time-based | If within business hours |

Actions (What happens):

| Action Type | Example | |------------|---------| | Send email | Welcome email, follow-up | | Create record | Add to CRM, create task | | Update record | Change status, increment counter | | Notify | Slack message, push notification | | Call API | External service, webhook | | Assign agent | Route to AI agent for processing |

Common Mistakes

• Automating too early — Understand the process manually first
• Over-automating — Not everything should be automated
• No error handling — What happens when the API is down?
• Set and forget — Automations need monitoring and maintenance

Pro Tips

• Start with your biggest time sink — Highest ROI first
• Document before automating — Write out the steps manually
• Automate in stages — Start simple, add complexity over time
• Monitor everything — You need to know when automations fail

Waymaker Workflow Builder Tour

Accessing the Workflow Builder

Navigate to Workflow Builder (/workflow-builder) from the sidebar. You'll see the visual canvas powered by ReactFlow.

The Canvas

The workflow canvas is a visual drag-and-drop editor:

Canvas Controls:

| Control | Action | |---------|--------| | Click + Drag | Pan the canvas | | Scroll | Zoom in/out | | Click node | Select and configure | | Drag from port | Create connections | | Delete key | Remove selected node | | Double-click | Edit node settings |

Node Types

Trigger Nodes (Green — Starting points):

| Node | Description | |------|-------------| | Form Submit | Fires when a form is submitted | | Webhook | Fires when external data arrives | | Schedule | Fires on a time schedule (cron) | | Manual | Fires when you click "Run" | | Record Created | Fires when database record is inserted | | Record Updated | Fires when database record changes |

Logic Nodes (Blue — Decision making):

| Node | Description | |------|-------------| | Condition | IF/ELSE branching | | Split Test | A/B test with percentage split | | Delay | Wait for a specified time | | Filter | Pass only matching data |

Action Nodes (Purple — Do something):

| Node | Description | |------|-------------| | Send Email | Send transactional or marketing email | | Create Record | Insert into database | | Update Record | Modify existing record | | HTTP Request | Call external API | | Agent Task | Assign work to an AI agent | | Notification | Send push or in-app notification | | Trigger Workflow | Start another workflow |

Connections

Connect nodes by dragging from an output port to an input port:

• Green line = Success path
• Red line = Error/failure path
• Dashed line = Conditional path

Workflow Settings

Each workflow has global settings:

• Name — Descriptive name for the workflow
• Status — Active, Paused, Draft
• Error handling — What happens when a node fails
• Logging — How much detail to record

Testing Mode

Before activating a workflow:

1. Click Test button
2. Provide sample trigger data
3. Watch each node execute step by step
4. Verify the output at each stage
5. Fix issues before going live

Pro Tips

• Name your nodes — "Send Email" isn't helpful; "Welcome Email to New Lead" is
• Add notes — Explain complex logic with canvas annotations
• Group related nodes — Keep the canvas organized visually
• Version your workflows — Save before making big changes
• Start with test mode — Never go live without testing first