Is it possible to schedule an automation email based on a custom datetime field?
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when you say custom date time field - are you talking about a custom field held in a contact card ? If so you can add a condition for when the contact field equals date and then a send action.
If it is just based on time of day and day to send you can do it from relative day
Yes, itās indeed a contact cardās datetimefield. I tried adding a condition right before the send action, but that does not work (or Iām missing something here).
The condition evaluates once and then itās a yes or no. It does not wait for x time, until the condition is met and then proceed. In ActiveCampaign it does work that way. You can set a condition and an expiration time.
This determines how long the condition block should wait for the condition to be true. If it expires, it continues with a false.
But in Mautic, itās a one time action. Mautic does not wait.
I also tried to loop back the false-path with a jump. Then it would keep looping until the condition is met. But Iām not sure if a loop like this is the right thing to do and it it wonāt break things.
It would be so much easier when a datefield could be used to schedule the mail, as a one-time action.
I donāt think it can be done.
The only way I can think is of is to add a delay and if is not the time to send the email start the campaign again.
Though that is probably what you meant this
Hi, Have you seen this page?
Excellent video by Rod Martin explaining how custom dates work.
Especially the expiry mecahnics, what you are looking for as I understand.
Good Luck.
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Hi Joey,
I hadnāt seen that page indeed. Wow. I think this is the solution to my problem. Thanks man, Iāll try this out!!
I tested it out. Unfortunately it does not work. It looks nice and promising, but the article is incorrect.
When you configure a datetime field, exactly like the example, the value is EVALUATED ONLY ONCE.
The outcome is True or False and thatās it.
It does NOT wait until the condition is met. It checks if whatās set is true or false and it follows the yes or no path.
For example, when a webinar is on thursday and I want to send an email 1 day before (so thatās on wednesday), the article suggests to:
- Select the datetime field that contains the webinar date (which is Thursday)
- Set the operator to ādateā.
- Set the value to āCustomā
- Set the values below to -1 days (which is Wednesday)
According to the video, the following actions should run 1 day before the webinar date.
BUT, this is not what happens.
What I see is that the condition is executed only once, as soon as the contact enters.
It checks if the condition is true or false.
And since the webinar is still 4 days from now, itās false. So it follows the no path immediately.
And thatās it.
No action 1 day before the webinar. No yes path on wednesday. No waiting untill the condition is true.
So basically this is unusable.
Or am I overseeing something here?
Hey,
Make sure you set the NO condition with the āwaiting timeā to happen. For example 30 days. This way you should see something like āwait 30 daysā at the NO path.
If you do this, the condition has 30 days to be evaluated.
Let me know how it went.
Joey
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Really? Okay. It makes sense. Iāll try this immediatelyā¦
Thanks again!
Unfortunately it does not work. It schedules the no-path action (the wait period), but when the datetime value equalled today, nothing happened. The no-path action is still scheduled.
Itās just after 24:00H Sunday,. So now itās Monday, June 22nd.
The date value is set to the 22nd of june, 2020.
So the condition is true at this very moment. But it is not re-evaluated.
Please see my test setup in the screenshot I created.
Iām testing different versions for you, Iāll report back tomorrow.
J
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That is very kind of you. Thank you.
I just checked and the no-path action is still scheduled.
I also tested the exact same setup in Mautic v3.0.0. Same result.
And I tried it in a Mautibox instance, v3.0.0. Same result too.
I have the idea that this āwaitingā function only works with a campaign āDecisionā. But it does absolutely not work with a campaign āActionāā¦
So Iām really curious what you findā¦
soā¦ this seems to be a lot like the āhappy birthdayā campaign idea. The campaign needs to continually evaluate the condition until itās met. You do need to restart the campaign every day until the yes side is met. - take a look at the update video I did (the article mentioned above is REALLY old and was before campaign re-start actions). - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lms6z8Frm5c
Let me know if that helps.
rod
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Yes, I was gonna test this out but had to wait until tomorrow to validate if it really works.
I also noticed, that restarting the jump to an event doesnāt work with a condition, so you need to restart it or go to a previous non-condition item.
Rod, I watched your video and I understand what you do. However, this should not be necessary. Even though it works, it would make things extra complicated, because I have to create extra campaigns. (one for every wait condition).
So before I go your routeā¦ (which I appreciate a lot!) I want to see if itās possible to get it done WITHIN a campaign.
Like Joey said, I also discovered that jumping did not work. Joey, Iām glad you found out that jumping to a condition does not work. So I added a tag event before the condition and jump back to that one.
Letās see if that worksā¦
This is what I am testing nowā¦
Iām afraid Iām having other more serious issues with Mautic 3. The jump didnāt work, because the event is not executed.
In this test setup there are 2 events scheduled.
The 1st is an email
The 2nd is adding a tag.
After this 2nd event I would add the jump back. But not even this 2nd event is executed.
The first one IS executed. I get the email. But the second one stays in the list of scheduled events. Even when the time has already passed.
Of course I flushed the cache for the 20-millionth time, but it does not help.
I think Mautic 3 is really very, very sick and completely unreliable.
Hi, Maurice.
Try setting up a new segment with the custom settings.
You can select a filter (example in the screenshot)
Unlike the campaign, the segment will work constantly, checking users to see if they match the specified filter.
In the segment settings, you can add an additional check to get the right users (such as a special tag that can be added to your existing campaign)
After that, you only need to create a new campaign that will send emails to all users who fall into this segment.
However, you can specify much more here.
https://docs.mautic.org/en/contacts/manage-segments
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Hi Vitaliy,
I know that a segment works that way, but it is unusable in an automation structure. In a campaign I must have a wait function until a certain day arrives, set in a date field.
I cannot push that contact to a segment from this campaign, because then the contact is added to the segment immediately, disregarding the filters.
When I construct a segment like your example, it works completely on its own. Accepting everyone, unless I start combining filters, like āis in a campaignā and āis a certain dateā, and so on.
This makes Mautic unbelievably non-intuitive, over-complex and impossible to manage.
Something that should be super simple has been made extremely difficult (read: impossible) by Mautic.
The fact that it does not do a simple task like this, makes it one of the worst Marketing Automation softwares available.
Therefore, I think itās better to switch over to ActiveCampain. I hate that, but Mautic is even worse. Itās nothing more than a blackbox full of bugs and the people working on it focus (in my opinion) on the wrong things.
When I see the endless list of bugs, I seriously start doubting this whole Mautic project. Bugs are solved and re-appear in later versions. How the hell is this possible?
Bugs that are reported YEARS ago are still unsolved.
Simple things like a normal WAIT function for campaigns, are not even considered. And several functions donāt even work.
Mautic is nice for people who like to play around with this kind of stuff. But itās absolutely non-professional, because itās unstable and super buggy.
As I said earlier: Mautic is good for a simple flat autoresponder. Nothing more. It most certainly does not deserve the label āMarketing Automationā.
Sorry for my frustration, but Iāve had it completely with Mautic.
Hi Maurice
I think I might have a little workaround for you. What I did in our instance (which required Mautic to check if today was their delivery day, then start them on the campaign if it was) was to add a wait of 24 hours right at the start of the campaign, check if the Custom Date Field was achieved, yes or no, then if NO, restart the campaign. Because it waits 24 hours at the start of each time they come back to the campaign, it achieved the goal.
Donāt know if this will work in assisting youā¦but here is a pic.
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Sorry, @imrodmartinā¦that is probably exactly what you have in your videoā¦which is probably exactly what I watched a year or 2 ago when trying to come up with a solution.
My bad, full credit to you, sir.
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