Scheduled flows are set to trigger at a specific point in time.

This can be once-off, or as a recurring communication on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis, with an optional end date.

Similar to an event triggered flow, a scheduled flow has criteria which still must be met, however you have control over when it will trigger and send.

Scheduled flows can be configured for both Salesforce and Zuora related objects.

Quick links:

How to create a scheduled flow

Trigger conditions

Who are you sending it to?

Recipient preview

Next steps

How to create a scheduled flow

1. Navigate to the Flows tab and click on the New Flow button

2. Name your flow and if helpful, provide an optional description

3. Set the Data source to Salesforce and Related object to the relevant object the flow is regarding

4. Under When will it trigger? select On an schedule

You'll then be able to configure your scheduled trigger conditions.

Trigger conditions

Timezone

By default, the Timezone field will be populated using the timezone specified within the Tenant Settings section of your Pendula settings screen.

You can edit this by clearing the Timezone and then searching for your preferred option.

First communication date and time

The First sent date & time will determine when your flow will initially trigger based upon the timezone value proceeding it.

You can either set this by manually entering a value, such as 27/02/2021 03:47 PM or by clicking on the calendar icon.

Setting your flow frequency

If the toggle is set to One-Off, the flow will only trigger and send once.

If the toggle is set to Repeating, then you will be able to set how frequently the flow repeats based on:

• Days

• Weeks (based on specified days within a week)

• Months

• Years

If the toggle is set to Repeating, the flow will continue to trigger indefinitely based on the chosen frequency until it is deactivated.

Alternatively, you can also add an optional end date by clicking on Add last communication date, after which the flow will stop triggering.

Scheduled flows are a great way to automate any repetitive or consistent communications which should be sent on a regular basis. Common examples include a happy birthday SMS, 24hr appointment reminders and monthly invoice or payment notifications.

Who are you sending it to?

This section allows you to specify your flow criteria by referencing fields on both your related object, along with other objects it relates to.

1. To set a rule, firstly either search for (or browse) and select the relevant field name from the Field dropdown. These fields coincide with any objects which share a one-to-one relationship with the related object you have selected for your flow, along with the related object itself

2. Select the desired Operator and Value to complete your rule

3. Click on the Add rule button to further segment recipients. Adding more than one rule also allows you to specify whether the flow should trigger based on all or any of the rules outlined
   
   

4. You can also create a group of rules by clicking on the Add group button. Once more than one rule is added to a group, you can apply an all or any to your group of rules. This allows you to nest a series of any statements within your all statements, for example all Contacts with a status equal to Current, with Region equal to either NSW OR QLD
   
   

If you do not add any rules to your contact filters, the flow will send to ALL records based on the selected related object.

See Flow criteria for more information on creating rules and groups.

Recipient preview

Once a rule has been added, you can query your data source to see how many records match this criteria by clicking on the check button.

Each time you add, edit or remove contact filters, you can recheck the recipient preview to see how this will affect the number of matching records.

The recipient preview is relevant to when the check button is clicked, so won't reflect any changes which occur within your data source after you have saved and activated your flow. Bear in mind that by the time the flow triggers, the number of matching records may be different depending on the criteria you have set.

Next steps

When you are ready to save your scheduled flow and proceed to the next step, you have two options:

• Finish later: This will save your flow with a status of Draft. You'll be able to edit this and continue to the flow builder at a later stage

• Save & next: This will take you to the flow builder screen, where you can configure what actions the flow will take once it has triggered

See Flow builder overview for more information.