Creating an Automation and Configuring Settings

Setting up automations in Bullhorn Automation is a powerful way to streamline your workflows and enhance efficiency. This guide walks you through the steps of creating a new automation from scratch or using pre-built blueprints designed for common use cases. You’ll learn how to configure essential settings, such as selecting the automation type, defining record types, and optimizing sending schedules. The article also explains key features like re-entry settings, high-priority automation, and staggered starts, helping you manage the flow and timing of your automations effectively.

Whether you're building a simple, one-step automation or a complex, multi-step workflow, this guide will help you understand the options available and configure settings that align with your business goals. By the end of this guide, you’ll have a fully configured automation that’s ready to enhance your processes and boost productivity.

Adding a New Automation

Follow the steps below to add and configure a new automation:

1. Click on Automations > Add Automation.
2. Fill out the following information: 
   • Automation Type: You can choose to create your automation from scratch, or select from several pre-built common use cases known as blueprints. Selecting one option over another won't limit your choices, but will pre-populate the automation with the appropriate steps to save you time.
   • Record Type: Select whether your automation will be designed around Candidates, Sales Contacts, Placements, Submissions, Jobs or Leads.
     • Leads is an Enterprise only feature.
     • You’ll only be able to use lists, engagements, and merge tags in automations of the same entity. For example, if you want to send out a Placement based survey engagement, you will need to create a Placement based automation. Candidate and Contact based surveys can also be used in Submission or Placement based automations.
   • Automation Name: Enter a name for your automation. Please note that you cannot save automation names, group names, list names, or stage names that contain the following characters: < > " ' % ; ( ) & +
     
   • Automation Type: You can choose between Standard or Center on Date Field. In Standard automations, the list(s) alone will control who enters the automation. For automations with Center on Date Field selected, in addition to the list criteria, entry is controlled by a relative date. For example: in a Candidate automation, you can select to have Candidates enter the automation when they match the list criteria and one week before their birthday.
     • The available trigger options for a Center on Date Field automation vary depending on the entity you select. The automations can be build around any date field including custom fields that are synced to Automation. The following are examples of options:
       • Placement: Start Date, End Date, Fixed Date
       • Submission: Interview Date, Fixed Date
       • Job: Job Start Date, Fixed Date
       • Lead: Date Last Visited, Date Last Comment
       • Candidate: Date Available, Birthday, Appointment Date, Fixed Date, Internal Interview Date
       • Sales Contact: Appointment Date, Fixed Date, Birthday
   • Choose the type of contact: If you are creating a Placement, Submission, or Job based automation you will also be prompted to select whether Candidates or Sales Contacts will go into the automation.

     Job based automations only allow the selection of Sales Contacts, and not Candidates.
     

3. Click Save to create the automation.

Automation Settings

The following settings are available for any automation you create: 

• Name: Give your automation a descriptive name. We recommend using strong naming conventions to ensure you can easily find your automations later.
• What should happen to candidates if they no longer match the lists?: This allows you to determine what happens when people have been removed from your list or no longer match the criteria on a dynamic list. The following options are available:
  • Continue through automation: The contact will proceed through the automation as if they were still on the list.
  • Remove them from the automation (most common): This is the default option and the most common. As soon as a contact is no longer on the list, they will be removed from the campaign.
  • Pause contacts until they match again: If a contact is removed from the list, they will stay where they are in the campaign. If they are later added to the list, they will pick up right where they left off.
  • If you initially select Remove them from the automation, then update to Continue through automation later on, it will only take effect moving forward. Anyone previously removed from the automation will not be re-added.
• Sending Settings: See Send Emails or Text Messages in Your Contact's Time Zone for additional information about these settings. The options for this setting are:
  • Staggered start: This allows you to start your campaigns over a number of days. This can be useful if you are reaching out to large groups of contacts (1,000 or more). Rather than sending all of your emails at once, they will be equally distributed over the number of days you select. For example, if you start a re-engagement campaign with 10,000 candidates, you may want to set that number to 10, so that you’d send to 1,000 candidates each day, over 2 weeks. Note: We cannot guarantee exactly equal numbers of contacts in groups, because the number of records in a list can change daily.
  • Days to send: This allows you to specify the days of the week you want emails to go out.
  • Times to send: This ensures messages will only be sent during the times you approve. You can also specify if you would like messages to be sent according to the candidates time zone or your Bullhorn Automation time zone.
• Re-entry Settings: Re-entry settings allow you to control how often a contact can enter your automation. The options available vary based on the entity of your automation, and it can get a little confusing! For a detailed explanation of re-entry options, see Re-entry Settings.
• High-priority Automation: Enabling this setting will ensure that the changes and step actions on this automation will occur before others. If you select this option:
  • Emails & text notifications for this automation will be sent before others in the queue.
  • Newly added/edited records will process to the associated lists before others in the queue.
  • Records will flow through this automation before others.
• Allow Duplicates: This setting is unchecked by default. Enabling this setting will allow all duplicate Contacts that meet your list criteria to enter the automation. To read more on duplicates and how Bullhorn Automation handles them, see Duplicates Shown in Bullhorn Automation.

• Delete: This setting is displayed as a trash bin icon in the bottom left of your screen.This setting removes the campaign. There is no undo option, so be certain before you delete!

Once you’ve created your automation and configured the settings, it’s time to add some steps! See Adding Automation Steps and Automation Steps Overview for how to add steps and information on what each step does.