Introduction
In project management, timely contract signing is essential to the successful initiation and execution of a project.
This article will show you how to use Automations Pro to automatically check contract statuses and regularly send follow-up email reminders to the responsible employees and client contacts until the contracts are successfully signed. This helps significantly improve contract-signing efficiency.
Solution Design
Create a Project Contracts form to record and approve contract information. The form should contain fields such as Contract No. and Contract Status.
Create a Contract Follow-ups form to add contract follow-up tasks. The form should contain fields such as Created Date and Follow-up Owner.
Create an Automation Pro that starts running on the fifth day after a follow-up task is added. Based on the status of the contract being followed up, Automations Pro performs different actions:
If the contract status is Sent or Pending Signature, the contract still requires follow-up. Email reminders are sent to the follow-up owner and the client contact.
If the contract is in any other status, no further follow-up is required. The corresponding contract follow-up task is deleted directly.
Demonstration
In the Contract Follow-ups form, add a contract follow-up task where Follow-up Owner is Jane and Created Date is 2024-09-15.
Automations Pro starts running on 2024-09-20 and then runs once every week.
If the contract still requires follow-up, reminder emails are sent to the follow-up owner, Jane, and the client contact, Alex.
If the contract no longer requires follow-up, the corresponding follow-up task is automatically deleted.
Taking a contract that still requires follow-up as an example, the result is shown below:
Designing the Form
The following three forms are required in this example:
Project Contracts: This form should contain fields such as Contract No., Project Name, Contract Status, Client Contact Name, and Client Email.
Contract Follow-ups: This form should contain fields such as Contract No., Contract Name, Follow-up Details, Follow-up Owner, and Created Date.
Employee Profiles: This form is used to record employee information and should contain fields such as Employee Name and Email.
Configuring Automations Pro
Step 1 Creating an Automation Pro
Open the Contract Follow-ups form and go to Extension > Automations.
Create a new Automation Pro named Automatic Contract Follow-up Reminders, and select Scheduled Trigger as the trigger type, as shown below:
Step 2 Configuring the Trigger Node
Configure the trigger node as follows so that Automations Pro starts running on the fifth day after a follow-up task is added and then runs once every week:
Trigger Time Type:
Select Trigger by Date&Time Field.
Select Contract Follow-ups as the triggering form.
Trigger Time: Set the first trigger time to 9:30 AM, five days after Created Date.
Recurrence: Run once weekly.
End Time: Set the end time to 2025-12-31 23:59.
Step 3 Querying the Contract Requiring Follow-up
Use a Query Record node to retrieve the contract that currently requires follow-up. The query result will be used as the basis for subsequent actions.
Add a Query Record node below the trigger node.
Rename the node Query Current Contract, and complete the following settings:
Target Form: Project Contracts
Query Condition: Contract No. equals to any Trigger Data--Contract No.
Step 4 Determining Whether the Contract Requires Follow-up
Use an Add Path node to process the two categories on separate paths:
Path One: If the contract status is Sent or Pending Signature, the contract still requires follow-up. Email reminders should be sent to the follow-up owner and the client contact.
Other Conditions: If the contract is in any other status, such as signed, canceled, or suspended, no further follow-up is required. The corresponding contract follow-up task should be deleted.
Path One
Add an Add Path node below the Query Current Contract node, as shown below:
Select the Path Condition node and complete the following settings:
Rename the node Contract - Sent/Pending Signature.
Set the path condition to:
Query Current Contract--Contract Status
equals any ofSent, Pending Signature
Add a Query Record node below the Contract - Sent/Pending Signature node to retrieve the follow-up owner's details.
Complete the following settings:
Target Form: Employee Profiles
Query Condition: Employee
equalsTrigger Data--Follow-up Owner
Add an Add Formula node to generate the project name to be included in subsequent reminder emails. Complete the following settings:
Rename the node Contract Project Name.
Select Formula Calculation as the calculation method.
Click Add Formula to open the formula editor, and enter the following formula:
{"text":"LEFT(IF(RIGHT(Query Current Contract—Project Name, 7) == 'Project',Query Current Contract—Project Name,CONCATENATE(Query Current Contract—Project Name, ' Project')),35)
5. Add an Add Plugin node to send a contract follow-up email to the client contact.
Complete the following settings:
Rename the node Email Client Contact.
Select Gmail as the plugin.
6. Add another Add Plugin node to send a contract follow-up email to the responsible employee. Complete the following settings:
Rename the node Email Follow-up Owner.
Select Gmail as the plugin.
Other Conditions
Add a Delete Record node below the Other Conditions node. This node deletes contract follow-up tasks that no longer require further action.
Under Delete Object, select Delete Record at the node, and then select Triggered Data.
Step 5 Saving and Enabling Automations Pro
After completing all the settings, click Save & Enable to put the Automation Pro into use, as shown below:
