Automations in Spectora Advanced are a powerful tool to help automate your workflow and ensure that important tasks don’t slip through the cracks. By setting up Automations, you can create automated email responses and trigger messages based on specific events, such as sending follow-up emails, generating reminders, or notifying team members when an inspection is scheduled.
Here’s how you can get started with using Automations in Spectora Advanced to streamline your operations and improve your client communication.
Advanced Automations allow much more customization than the base automation options in the standard software. In addition to standard timed reminders and follow-ups, Adv Automations allow for conditional logic and event triggers. Some possibilities include:
Send a reminder to pay the day before the inspection if it is still unpaid
Send an upsell email if a certain service add-on isn't included
Send a third-party contractor a text if a certain service is selected
Send different emails/texts based on the service selected
Send different emails/texts for different types of clients (VIP, investor, etc.) and agents (first-time agent, repeat agent, etc.) based on Contact Tags
Send different publishing emails based on the name of the report
Send an email only if the property's square footage is above a certain amount
Trigger a webhook if a custom field has a certain value
Advanced Automations are more complex and require a bit more time to set up and organize - we'll walk you through everything you need to know in this guide.
✨ If you are interested in learning more about Spectora Advanced, click here to book a call with our team! You can also sign up for your free 30-day trial here! 🤩
How to Enable Automations with Spectora Advanced
How to Enable Automations with Spectora Advanced
First, you'll want to make sure your Spectora Advanced Automations are enabled!
Once you sign up for Spectora Advanced, you'll have new tools at your disposal. To use these new tools, you'll need to enable them under your settings.
✨ Note: The verbiage here still shows "Actions", as well as some features on the Inspection Details page.
Click "Settings:
Click "Advanced Tools"
Click "Enable Actions"
Decide if you want to use Actions on all inspections or a per-inspection basis
Per Inspection: Use Actions only for inspections that you choose.
All Inspections: Use Actions for all inspections, including inspections that are booked through your Online Scheduler.
Click "Save"
You'll automatically be redirected to your Company Automations page! This is where you can create, edit, and delete your Automations.
Now you're ready to begin!
🔴 Note: If per-inspection is enabled and an inspection is scheduled using base Automations, you cannot switch to Advanced Automations after the inspection has been scheduled.
Managing Your Automations
Managing Your Automations
You can access your Company Advanced Automations a few different ways - through Settings > Advanced Tools, your Name with the drop-down menu, or the Navigation Bar.
Your Company Automations can be viewed and managed by anyone with "admin" permissions.
💻 Pro-tip: To add Advanced Automations to your Navigation Bar, check out the steps in this article!
Organizing Your Automations
Organizing Your Automations
Advanced Automations are organized into "Categories" to help you break things up. These can be any logical category you'd like. For example, maybe you'd like to organize your categories by upsells.
Other possible category ideas include:
Scheduling, Reminders, Publishing, and Follow-Ups
Emails, Texts, and Webhooks
Navigate to your Advanced Automations from the drop-down menu or your navigation bar
You'll be redirected to your main Advanced Automations page
Automations have specific "Categories"
Automations have multiple filters you can toggle to make them easy to manage
Use each filter to narrow down your automations, or use the search bar to search by automation name
To manage your categories click "Manage Categories"
You'll see all categories, click into a category to see all automations within it
To add a new category click "+Add Category"
There is no limit to the amount of categories you can have, so create any structure that works for you!
Advanced Automations Presets Library
Advanced Automations Presets Library
With the new Advanced Automations, we're excited to share there is now a library for Automations that are ready for you to use!
Check out the video walk-through below:
Click on "Presets Library" to access all preset automations
Each preset will have a brief description and title for ease of finding what you're looking for
Click "Learn More" to view more information on the automation and what it is used for
Click "Use Preset" which will bring you to the editing page
Make edits as needed and view all details of the automation like the conditions, email or text body, time constraints etc.
Once you've made all your edits or if you like how it is already, click "Save"
Review the automation then click "Save" then "Save as Active" to ensure the automation is active and will be present on all future scheduled inspections
The presets library will be continuously updated, so use it to your advantage!
Creating New Automations
Creating New Automations
When creating a new Automation you'll see the three key parts of the set-up. We'll go over each of these is more detail!
Before we dive in, check out this video walk-through below:
Automation Name and Category are the first options at the top of the page, these will assist you in organizing and filtering your automations.
When this happens
The first step in creating your Automation, similar to Actions "Event", use this to choose and set up the event that determines when your message is sent.
When you click to edit, you'll see clear descriptions for each scenario to help you decide what will work best.
Only send if (optional)
Similar to Actions "Rules", use these Conditions to narrow down specifics to control when your message is sent.
Each Condition is like a filter to assist in customization and control of whether or not an Automation will be sent.
If you have no Conditions / leave this blank then the Automation will go out on all inspections.
You'll notice when you add more than one Condition that the "and" and "or" options are present.
And: This means that all requirements have to be met for the Automation to be sent out. So, all Conditions set would have to apply in order for the Automation to send.
Or: This means any of the rules can apply for this to be sent. So, just one Condition would have to apply in order for the Automation to send.
At this time you cannot use both And and Or on one Automation.
✨ Keep in mind Automations are very literal, they will strictly follow how you've set them up.
Do this
Similar to Actions "Details", use this to determine what is being sent; an email, text, or web-hook, and who it's being sent to.
Here you can customize the body of the email, or text (if you have a Custom Phone Number with us). Add your placeholders, links, text edits, logos etc.
Set the time frame for when the Automation goes out, and check out the Additional settings for in depth control.
Only trigger once: this will ensure the Automation only triggers to send one time, no matter if the conditions have been met more than once, avoiding duplicates.
Also send recurring jobs: enable to trigger this automation for recurring scheduled inspections.
Send even when notifications disabled: enable to send even when notifications are disabled. Use caution when toggling this on!
Send during certain hours only: use this control the specific times in which the automation will send.
Do not send on weekends: use this to keep automations from sending on weekends. Especially if you don't work weekends, you don't a want a response when you're enjoying your time off!
You'll also notice new time intervals here for minutes. Time interval spacing helps maintain sender reputation and increases the likelihood that emails reach inboxes rather than spam folders. You can select ten minute windows of time for when the automation will send when using minutes.
For hours, days, weeks and months you can input any number.
🔴 Note: Any new automations added or changes made to existing automations on the main Company Automations page will not reflect on inspections scheduled before these changes are made.
To pull in your newly created automations to existing inspections, you can use the Import New Actions button on the inspection details page, this will add the new automation(s) to this inspection's automation queue as long as the triggering event hasn't already occurred.
This also includes deleting automations. To make sure a deleted automation is removed from an inspection's queue you will want to manually disable those on the inspection details page.
Viewing an Inspection's Actions/Automations
Viewing an Inspection's Actions/Automations
Once you've scheduled your inspection, you can see all associated Advanced Autonations that were brought into that inspection. You can view, edit, enable/disable any of the automations, as well as see why an automation might not have been sent out.
✨ Note: The view here remains the same as the previous Actions view, and verbiage here still shows "Actions"
Click on the inspection from your dashboard calendar
You'll see Inspection Actions at the bottom of the page
All email actions will show in the "Emails" box
All text actions will show in the "Text Messages" box
Click "View All Inspection Actions" to view all possible actions for the inspection
Click into an actions group to see what actions are available
To enable or disable an action, toggle the switch on the left
To edit an existing action, click on any of the boxes (To, Event, Rules, Details)
To manually trigger an action, click "Send"
Successfully sent actions will show in green
Actions that were not sent due to not meeting the rules/requirements will show in gray
Actions that triggered but failed to send will show in red
To see why an action did not send, click "View Triggers"
If you recently created a new action, click "Import New Actions" to add it to the existing inspection
Summary
As you can see, Advanced Automations are a powerful feature that will allow you to set up complex automation rules. It is most useful for companies with multiple inspectors that offer multiple services and have time to put into setting up all the rules.
You can still use Spectora Advanced with our original base Automation system if you prefer the simple approach - just disable "Actions" in Settings > Advanced Tools.
✨ Check out this article for even more in depth information about Advanced Automations!
Frequently Asked Questions
I confirmed an inspection with notifications enabled, but the Automations sent out standard notifications instead of Advanced Automations that were intended. How to avoid that in the future, or is there a way to still use Advanced Automations on the current inspection?
To avoid this happening in the future, you should set your Advanced Automations/Actions to send on all inspections. You can do so by going to Settings > Advanced Tools > Select "All Inspections" under Actions.
Unfortunately, there is not a way to use Advanced Automations on the current inspection - once an inspection is created, you cannot switch between base Automations and Advanced Automations/Actions.
How can I switch from using the same messages for all inspections to having messages specific to each type of inspection without disrupting my current inspection messaging?
You can copy your existing Advanced Automation messages by clicking the "..." icon > then the double paper icon to Duplicate.
Once you've duplicated the message, you can configure the newly created Action to have more specific rules.
If you have any questions or feedback, write into our chat bubble or email support@spectora.com!
