Triggers are a powerful feature of Donorfy which allows you to define custom behaviours when specific events happen, such as a new Constituent being added, a new volunteer application and so on.
What is a Trigger?
A Trigger = an automation.
triggers are easy to set up and comprises of:
-
a Trigger Type - a Donorfy event, such as “a new Transaction has been created”
-
a Condition - such as £500 or more
-
one or more Actions - such as “send and email the Chief Exec”; “enrol the donor in an automated sequence of emails” and so on
Watch the overview and tutorial on Triggers here.
Availability
Triggers are available to both Essential and Professional Plans as follows:
- Essentials - a maximum of 3 Triggers
- Professional - unlimited number of Triggers
Trigger Types and conditions
Triggers are "fired" when the Trigger Type event happens. However, you may only wish the Actions to be performed if the Trigger Action (for example - RPI Added) was for a certain Campaign.
You can control that by adding a Condition to your Trigger. Conditions are filters in corresponding Donorfy Lists.
You can add a delay to your Trigger which means you can create a trigger to send a follow-up response.
This table shows all of the available Trigger Types and the types of List whose filters can be used to provide further conditions for the Trigger's Action(s) to be performed.
|
Trigger Type |
List Types for trigger conditions |
Notes |
|
Constituent Added |
Constituent |
These Triggers are executed automatically, according to their conditions (if present)
|
|
Constituent Updated |
||
|
Constituent Deleted |
||
|
Activity Added |
Constituent and Activity |
|
|
Activity Updated |
||
|
Activity Deleted |
||
|
Transaction Added |
Constituent and All Transactions (note: not Transaction Payment or Transaction Allocation) |
|
|
Transaction Updated |
||
|
Transaction Deleted |
||
|
RPI Added |
Constituent and Recurring Payment Instruction |
|
|
RPI Updated |
||
|
RPI Deleted |
||
|
Scheduled |
n/a |
Scheduled Triggers run on a user-defined schedule - Daily, Hourly, Every x minutes |
|
Manual |
n/a |
Manual Triggers require a user to click a button to initiate them, via Data Management | Triggers |
Example of an RPI List with a filter. This example is ensuring that the Trigger only fires if the RPI was added today and the campaign in Spring 2022.
Trigger Actions
Actions are the tasks you want the trigger to perform. The expandable option below describes all the available actions. Please note that not all actions are available to all Trigger Types - see table below.
Sends an email to one or more recipients. Recipients must be Donorfy users. The email is composed in the Action, and provides placeholders for data to be "merged" into the subject and body.
The email is sent via the Email Server Settings (see Settings | Configuration | Email Server Settings).
Sends an email to the constituent that is the subject of the Trigger. The email is composed in the Action and provides placeholders for data to be "merged" into the subject and body.
The email is sent via the Email Server Settings (see Settings | Configuration | Email Server Settings).
Initiates a Mailchimp automation campaign for the constituent related to the Trigger event. More information on setting up an automation campaign can be found in this article.
Optionally, selecting a Purpose will check whether the Constituent has allowed communication through that Purpose before running the Action.
NOTE: only the Constituent email address and name are sent to Mailchimp as part of the Trigger. Tags and Purposes that are mapped via your Mailchimp settings will be sent when you perform the Donorfy to Mailchimp sync from your List.
Initiates a Mailchimp Journey campaign for the constituent related to the Trigger event.
NOTE: only the Constituent email address and name are sent to Mailchimp as part of the Trigger. Tags and Purposes that are mapped via your Mailchimp settings will be sent when you perform the Donorfy to Mailchimp sync from your List.
NOTE: this Action requires good knowledge of APIs and coding. And is something we'd recommend a web developer does on your behalf.
Sends an HTTP POST request to another service's API. You can optionally define custom headers to be sent with the HTTP payload. Please note these are not stored encrypted.
The payload can be different depending on the Trigger Type. Currently, there is only one payload type.
Example of a standard payload
This HTTP body is sent from a Constituent Added event.
{
"TriggerType": 6,
"EntityType": "Constituent",
"EntityId": "632c9e6f-bded-ea11-b5d9-501ac580925b",
"EntityNumber": 583,
"Timestamp": "2020-09-03T08:15:31.5659533+00:00"
}
The optional headers section is for custom data that you would like to add. This does not use any placeholders or data fields from within Donorfy - it is free text data only.
NOTE: This action is available only to customers with the Own Azure option.
Runs a Stored Procedure on your Microsoft Azure SQL database. For example, a valid value would be [dbo].[sp_whoisactive]
Trigger types and the available Actions
Certain Actions are restricted to certain Trigger Types. This table shows which actions can be applied to Triggers of the various types:
|
Trigger Type |
Email User |
Email Constituent |
Initiate Mailchimp Automation |
Initiate Mailchimp Journey |
HTTP Post |
Execute a Stored Procedure |
|
Constituent Added |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Constituent Updated |
||||||
|
Constituent Deleted |
❌ |
❌ |
||||
|
Activity Added |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Activity Updated |
||||||
|
Activity Deleted |
❌ |
❌ |
||||
|
Transaction Added |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Transaction Updated |
||||||
|
Transaction Deleted |
❌ |
❌ |
||||
|
RPI Added |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
|
RPI Updated |
||||||
|
RPI Deleted |
❌ |
❌ |
||||
|
Scheduled |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
✓ |
✓ |
|
Manual |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
❌ |
✓ |
✓ |
Only run if all previous actions are successful. If the option is ticked (yes) it will result in the action being skipped if any of the steps above it in the Trigger are unsuccessful or error.
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