Force Exiting from an Automation
Should you ever find yourself in a situation where you have accidentally triggered a matter into an automation that you did not mean for them to trigger in, it is important to know how to force exit them from the automation.
Of course, the best way to avoid this situation is to make sure that you and any of your other Lawmatics users are all familiar with your various automation entry conditions, so that you are not accidentally triggering something that should have not triggered. The best way to do this is to simply review each automation in your process, and familiarize with what entry conditions are triggering each workflow.
We also suggest using a cheat sheet or post-it notes as you are still transitioning to Lawmatics, especially if automation in general is new to your firm, this can be a good way to transition to using automations.
If you do end up inadvertently triggering an automation accidentally, there are a few things to keep in mind.
- Automations take about 30 seconds to fire after the entry condition is met. If you realize that you have incorrectly triggered an automation within about 30 seconds or less, your best plan of attack is to simply deactivate the automation before it has had a chance to fire. You can then edit the matter so that it no longer meets the entry conditions before reactivating the automation.
- If you notice your mistake after the automation has already fired, then there will be a different plan of attack. If the automation does not contain any time delays, then any actions in the automation will simply occur as soon as the automation triggers. If this is the case, force exiting will not do any good, because the target would have already run through. In this scenario, your best bet is to review what was sent via automation, and reach out to the recipients to alert them of the mistake.
- If a matter has accidentally triggered into an automation that contains a time delay, then you can simply pause or force exit the matter from the automation while they are in the delay. This won't do anything to correct any automation actions that have already run before the time delay, but it will prevent future actions from running.
There are a few ways to pause or force exit someone from an automation.
First, you can go to the automations page, under the marketing tab, and then click the statistics icon for that automation, highlighted below.
Once you are on the stats page, you will see a list of all matters who have triggered in that particular automation. If a matter is currently in a time delay, you will see their status listed as Delayed. When that is the case, you will also be able to force exit them from the automation by clicking the X icon, shown below.
You can also accomplish this same thing by going to the matter's profile, locating the automation on the activity timeline, and then click the X icon from there.
Once you click the X, the matter will be removed from that automation and will not go through any further actions in that workflow. You will also see this activity logged on the timeline, shown below.
FAQ's
What is the difference between force exit and exit conditions?
Exit conditions can be built into the automation as an exit rule for exiting someone from an automation if a certain condition is met. For example, if your automation is sending a sequence of booking links for someone to schedule their consultation, you would want the automation to stop once the person books their consultation. In this scenario, you would add exit conditions to the automation for event created and then any targets will automatically exit when that condition is met. The force exit button allows you to manually exit someone from the automation even if they have not met the exit condition.
Can a matter re-trigger into an automation after I have force exited them?
No, a matter will not re-trigger through an automation after they have exited. You can manually rerun the button by clicking the circular arrow icon on the stats page or on this matter's timeline to restart the automation.
Can I undo something that was sent via automation?
No, once something has been sent either via email or text message you can not "undo" it or "un-send" it. If any data was changed internally via automation, that can easily be corrected or undone by simply editing the data back to how it was before the automation ran.