Build an automated email workflow

What a workflow is

A workflow is a visual automation made up of a trigger (what starts it) and a chain of nodes (what happens next). Each subscriber runs through the workflow independently on their own timeline. Once you activate a workflow, it runs without any manual involvement.

Common uses: a welcome series when someone subscribes, a trial-expiry warning based on a date custom field, a re-engagement email after a long period of inactivity, or a post-purchase follow-up.

Create a workflow

1. Go to Newsletter → Workflows.
2. Click New workflow, enter a name, and click Create.
3. The visual workflow editor opens with a trigger node already on the canvas.

Choose a trigger

Click the trigger node to configure it. Available triggers:

Trigger	When it fires
Subscribe	A new subscriber is added to your list (use this for welcome sequences).
Unsubscribe	A subscriber opts out — useful for off-boarding or exit-feedback sequences.
Date	A date or datetime custom field relative to a calendar date — e.g. 3 days before trial_expiry, on the subscriber's birthday, or 30 days after signup_date. See the configuration details below.
Manual	Triggered on demand, one subscriber at a time, from the subscriber's detail page. Use this for one-off enrollments without building a full campaign.
API	An HTTP call to the workflow trigger endpoint enrolls a specific subscriber programmatically.

Configure the Subscribe trigger

The Subscribe trigger fires only after the subscriber confirms via the double-opt-in verification link. It does not fire for imported subscribers, or for subscribers marked verified without going through an opt-in flow.

Configure the Date trigger

• Recipients — pick at least one Group or Segment. Save stays disabled until you do.
• Modifier — choose Before, On, or After the field's value.
• Unit — for date fields you can pick days, weeks, months, or years. Minutes and hours are only available when the field is of type datetime (a plain date field has no time component).
• Time of day — the hour/minute picker is shown only for date fields. datetime fields already carry their own time so no picker appears.
• Time zone — every trigger time is interpreted in UTC (the form labels say so explicitly).

Add nodes to your workflow

Click the + button at the bottom of any node to add the next step. Available node types:

• Email — send an email. The email editor opens so you can design the message, or select an existing template. Each email node stores its own copy of the content.
• Delay — wait a specified amount of time (minutes, hours, days, weeks, months) before moving to the next node. Subscribers are held at this node until the delay elapses. Validation caps each unit: 60 minutes, 24 hours, 31 days, 52 weeks, 12 months.
• Action — change the subscriber without sending anything. Variants:
  • Update a custom field — set a literal value, increase or decrease by an amount, set to now, or set to now + offset / now − offset.
  • Move between groups — copy into groups, move from one set of groups to another, or remove from groups.
  • Mark subscriber as unsubscribed — opts the subscriber out, the same as if they clicked the unsubscribe link.
• Condition — branch the workflow based on subscriber data. Subscribers who match the condition go down one path; others go down another. Use any subscriber field or custom field as the condition criteria.
• Webhook — send an HTTP POST to an external URL with subscriber data in the request body. Useful for syncing to a CRM or triggering an action in another tool.
• Data fetch — retrieve data from an external URL and make it available in subsequent nodes.
• Other workflow — hand off to another workflow (nest automations for complex sequences). The target workflow must be active. Per the UI copy, this is intended for chaining MANUAL workflows.

Build a welcome sequence (example)

1. Set trigger to Subscribe.
2. Add an Email node: "Welcome to [Your Brand]" — sent immediately on subscribe.
3. Add a Delay node: wait 3 days.
4. Add an Email node: "Getting the most out of [Key Feature]".
5. Add a Delay node: wait 4 days.
6. Add an Email node: "Have questions? We're here."

Activate and deactivate a workflow

New workflows are inactive by default and will not fire for any subscribers until you turn them on. The activation toggle lives only inside the editor's side menu. The workflow card on the list shows a read-only Active / Inactive badge — it doesn't respond to clicks.

Deactivating a workflow stops it for everyone. Any subscribers currently waiting at a step (for example, inside a Delay node) are removed from the queue and will not receive the remaining emails. Reactivating the workflow later does not restart them — you would have to enroll them again.

Trigger a workflow manually

To enroll a subscriber in a manual-trigger workflow:

1. Go to Newsletter → Subscribers.
2. Open the subscriber's detail page.
3. Click Actions → Trigger workflow.
4. Pick the workflow and click Start.

This enrolls one subscriber at a time. For bulk enrollment, use the API trigger from your backend instead (see below).

Trigger a workflow via API

To enroll a subscriber programmatically, send a POST request to /api/newsletter/workflow/start with your API key in the Y-API-Key header:

POST /api/newsletter/workflow/start
Y-API-Key: <your-api-key>
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "email": "[email protected]",
  "workflow_id": "<workflow-uuid>",
  "data": { "custom_field_tag": "value" }
}

Requirements:

• The email must already belong to a VERIFIED contact in your organization.
• The workflow must be active.
• The workflow's trigger_settings.type must be API.
• The data object is sanitized server-side and capped at 20 fields. Use it to pass values you'll reference inside the workflow's email and webhook nodes.

Duplicate a workflow

Open a workflow's menu and click Duplicate. All nodes and email content are copied into a new inactive workflow that you can customize independently.

What's next

Each email node uses the same drag-and-drop editor — see Use the drag-and-drop email editor for tips. To reuse email designs across multiple workflows, save them as templates.