If Conditions (Branches)

If conditions, AKA branches, are a great way to create advanced conditional logic within an automation. It is important to understand the basics of how a target will flow through your various if conditions in order to use them properly.

If conditions are an action item that can be selected within your automation, and they work similarly to entry conditions in that they check if a particular condition is met, and trigger the appropriate action (side of the branch) when met or not met.

When you select the If Condition action, you will see a menu on the right side of the screen to select which conditions should be checked for this branch.

Once you select your condition and click save, you will see a branch created in your automation. When the condition is met on a target in the automation, they will flow down the "yes" (green check mark) side of the branch. When the condition is not met, they will head down the "no" side.

One example of when if conditions are useful is to trigger a different intake form to be sent to a target depending on the practice area of their matter. Let's say hypothetically that my firm has one intake form used for criminal cases, one for estate planning, and then a basic form used for all other practice areas.

To create an automation that would send the appropriate form based on the matter's practice area, we will use if conditions. Here is how to create that automation:

When a target hits the first branch, the system will check if their practice area is Criminal Defense. If it is, then they will go to the "yes" side and receive the Criminal Intake Form. 

If they are not a Criminal Defense matter, they will travel down the "no" side and hit the next branch. The system will check if their practice area is Estate Planning. If it is, they will head down the "yes" branch and receive that form. 

Lastly, if they are not an Estate Planning matter, then they will go down the final "no" side of the branch and receive the Basic Intake form.

It is very important to note that if conditions are only to be used for conditions that are already determined at the time the automation triggers. For example, in the scenario above the automation would not work properly if the practice area had not yet been assigned on the matter when this automation was triggered.

You should not use if conditions for sending reminders to fill a form/sign a document/book an appointment etc. Let's take a look at an example of an automation where if conditions would not work.

Hypothetically, let's say you want to send a form to a matter, and then if they haven't filled it out you want to send them a reminder, and once they fill it out a task should be assigned internally to review. The example below is not a proper use of if conditions for this scenario, and this automation WILL NOT WORK.

In this example, the if condition is checked immediately after the form was sent, so there is no possible way it could have been filled out yet. Therefore, the matter will go down the "no" branch every single time and will receive the form again.

The "yes" side of the branch will also not work, because once the matter has travelled down the "no" side of the branch, the if condition will not be rechecked once they fill out the form. Therefore, they will never make it to the "yes" side of the branch.

You cannot use if conditions for this type of workflow. Instead, you will need to create the automation using a time delay and exit conditions. And the task would need to trigger in a separate automation once the form is filled out. Click here to learn how this automation should be created.

FAQ's

Can I select more than one condition on an if condition branch?

Yes, you can select as many conditions as you would like and assign an AND or OR relationship to each. This is done with the same process as setting multiple entry conditions.

What happens if I have both if conditions and exit conditions in one automation?

This is perfectly normal and each condition will be checked independently throughout the workflow. The exit conditions are checked before each action item in the automation, including if conditions, so if the target meets the exit conditions before an if condition then they will simply exit at that time. If the exit conditions are not met, then the if conditions will be checked on the target when they hit that action in the automation.