Automate Communications

Automations send the right message at the right time without manual effort.

Common automations

• Welcome series for new volunteers or donors
• Event reminders before a registered event
• Receipt and acknowledgement after a gift
• Renewal reminders for expiring certifications

Configure an automation

1. Go to Communications → Automations and click Create Rule.
2. Trigger — pick the event that starts the rule (for example, Lapsed Donor Re-engagement). Picking a different trigger clears any conditions and recipient filters you had set, because each trigger has its own.
3. Conditions — optionally narrow when the rule fires.
4. Template — choose the email to send.
5. Recipients — optionally narrow who receives it (see below), and choose whether to send right away or after a delay.
6. Review — name the rule and activate it.

Choose who receives it

The Recipients step shows only the filters the trigger you picked can apply. All filters must match (they are combined with AND).

Trigger	Filters you can set
Event Reminder (24 hours before)	Contact lists, tags, maximum recipients, and volunteer filters: volunteer status, minimum volunteer hours (approved hours only), background check
Donation Thank You	Contact lists, tags, maximum recipients, and donor filters: minimum lifetime giving, donor type, giving level
Invite Recent Donors to Volunteer Event	All of the above
Lapsed Donor Re-engagement	All of the above

Every other trigger — volunteer hour milestones, the donation pickup emails, fundraising event registration emails, and waiver reminders — sends to the person the event is about. The Recipients step says Recipient is set by the trigger and has no filters to set.

A few things to know about the donor filters:

• Giving Level lists your own levels from Fundraising → Giving Levels, by the names you gave them.
• Giving Level and Minimum Lifetime Giving both use the donor's lifetime giving, the same total their giving level comes from, so the two always agree.
• Donor Type is Individual, Corporate, Foundation, or Government, matching the donor type on the person's record. A rule that already has a type the list doesn't offer — Recurring, Major, or Religious (which data imports set for churches and religious groups) — keeps working; the list shows it as no longer available.
• A person without a donor record never matches a donor filter.

People who opted out of a kind of email are always skipped — you don't need a filter for that. Templates categorized as transactional (receipts, confirmations) are the exception: they still send.

note

Previous Giving Level is no longer a condition on Lapsed Donor Re-engagement; choose the level under Recipients → Giving Level instead. A rule that already had a Previous Giving Level keeps using it. If the rule has no Giving Level of its own, the next time you edit it the old level appears under Giving Level, and saving keeps it there — as long as it is one of your current levels.

If the rule also has its own Giving Level, editing it shows that level under Giving Level, not the Previous Giving Level, and saving drops the Previous Giving Level. Until then, a donor has to be at both levels, so if the two differ the rule sends to no one. Once you save, only the Giving Level shown applies, and the rule can reach donors it skipped before. Check the Giving Level before you save.

The old condition always offered Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum, whatever levels you had set. If the rule's level isn't one of your levels, it may match no one, and the Giving Level filter says so when you edit the rule. Pick one of your levels (or Any level) before you save: Omnivo won't save a rule with a giving level your affiliate doesn't have.

When a filter matches no one, or can't be applied

• If the filters leave no one to send to, the rule sends nothing and the automation log shows the run with how many people the filters left out.
• If a filter can't be applied, the rule sends nothing until you edit its recipients. This happens when an excluded contact list or an excluded tag was deleted. It also happens when the rule has a filter saved before this check existed that its trigger doesn't support, or a value that is no longer a choice, such as the old Organization donor type. The automation log shows why, and the rule card marks the filter (blocks sending).
• An included contact list that was deleted adds no one. If it was the rule's only included list, the rule sends to no one until you remove it or pick another list.
• An included tag that was deleted matches no one. Under Must have ALL of these tags, that means the rule sends to no one until you remove it.
• A Giving Level that is no longer one of your levels is marked (not a current level) on the rule card. It may match no one; edit the rule to pick a current level.
• For Donation Thank You, a donor who doesn't match the filters gets no thank-you for that gift, even if you change the filters later. That includes every gift made while a deleted list or tag left the rule sending to no one.

Rules for triggers that send to the person the event is about ignore recipient filters. If one was saved with a filter earlier, the rule card marks it (not applied); the rule keeps sending.

If you turned off the old Exclude Opt-out switch on a rule, nothing changes: the rule keeps sending, people who opted out are still skipped, and saving the rule clears the old setting.

Emails that already send automatically

Some triggers — the donation pickup emails, for example — are part of a built-in sequence that already sends on its own. You do not need to create an automation for them to work.

You will still find them in the trigger list, because an automation is how you change or stop them:

• Send a different template — create an active rule pointing at your own template.
• Delay the send — set a delay on that rule.
• Stop the email entirely — create a rule for the trigger and leave it inactive. That tells Omnivo to send nothing for that trigger.

These triggers have no conditions or recipient filters to set: they send whenever the event happens, to the person it is about. The rule builder tells you when a trigger works this way.

tip

To change only the wording of a built-in email — not when it sends — use Administration → System Emails instead. That keeps the automatic sending and the details Omnivo appends (pickup details, tracking link, tax acknowledgment) while replacing your message text.

Monitor and tune

The automation log shows every message sent, why it was sent, and whether it was delivered. Pause or edit any automation at any time.