Follow-up that happens whether or not anybody remembers.
One trigger, the conditions that narrow it, and the actions that run. Built on the same records as the board and the inbox, logged on the record afterwards, and shipped with seven recipes so that most teams never have to open the canvas at all.
Demo workflow. The five actions above are the ones the product ships; assignment of an owner is the sixth. Nothing here needs a script, and nothing here runs on records the person who set it up cannot see.
What is sales automation?
It is the part of the follow-up that should not depend on a person remembering. Something happens to a record — a deal moves, a lead is created, a week passes with nothing scheduled — and the system does the small, predictable next thing: raises the task, sends the mail, sets the field, tells another system. It does not sell anything. It stops the cheap losses, which are almost never losses to a competitor.
Two shapes do nearly all of the work. A workflow is a rule: one trigger, one moment, one record. A sequence is a cadence: a series of steps aimed at one person over days, which stops when they answer. Tools that collapse the two into one builder end up doing both badly.
Six things automation covers here.
All six in every plan. Tiers differ in how deep the automation goes, never in whether you have any.
Triggers on four objects
Leads, contacts, companies and activities as well as deals — created, updated, stage changed, field changed, or gone quiet with nothing scheduled.
Conditions that narrow it
Match on the record’s own fields, including the custom ones, so the rule fires on the deals you meant rather than on everything that moved.
Six actions
Update a field, assign an owner, create a task, send an email, enrol the record in a sequence, or call an outbound webhook.
Sequences with an exit
A cadence over days, using the same templates and merge fields as the inbox, with exit criteria that stop the rest of the thread and a sending window that keeps it in working hours.
A run log on the record
What fired, what it matched, what it did and when — in the same audit trail as stage changes, deletions, permission changes and exports.
Webhooks out
An outbound webhook is a first-class action, so a won deal can reach your ERP without anybody re-keying it. One API key per integration.
Four steps, and the thing that stops them.
This is the renewal cadence most maintenance businesses end up writing by hand every quarter. Written once here, it runs on every AMC coming up for renewal, and it ends the moment the customer answers.
The mail those steps send is the same surface your team writes in. See templates, merge fields and the sending window →
Seven automations ship built.
The canvas is there when you need it. Most teams never open it, because the thing they wanted is already one of these — and a rule you switched on in a second is a rule you will actually keep.
| When this happens | Comsky CRM does this |
|---|---|
| A deal moves to a new stage | Run the follow-up that stage is supposed to trigger |
| A deal sits in one stage for N days | Flag it as rotting and chase the owner, not the team |
| A new deal is created | Drop it into the stage you actually start from |
| A deal progresses | Add the next activity, and a second one a few days later |
| A deal goes unanswered | Queue a follow-up on the unresponsive one |
| A deal has nothing scheduled | Re-engage it before it quietly dies |
| One deal field changes | Mirror the change into the field that depends on it |
The second row is the one that pays for the subscription. A deal is almost never lost in a meeting — it is lost by sitting still for five weeks while everyone assumes somebody else is on it. See rotting on the board →
Five questions to ask about any automation engine.
Ours included. Question three is where most demos get vague, and it is the one that decides whether your customers get mailed after they have already replied.
An automation you cannot audit is a rumour. Every run is written to the record it touched, with the trigger, the conditions it passed and the action it took.
Seven recipes ship ready to switch on. Most teams never open the canvas, because the thing they wanted is already one of the seven.
A sequence stops on exit criteria you set — a reply you mark, or an unsubscribe. Ask every vendor this one, and ask specifically whether the stop is automatic or manual.
A sending window keeps outreach inside working hours. An automation that mails a customer at 3am is worse than no automation, because it is unmistakably a machine.
An outbound webhook as a first-class action, so a won deal can tell your ERP without anybody re-keying it. One API key per integration, and installs written to the audit trail.
Five things to understand before you automate anything.
A sequence is a cadence. A workflow is a rule. They are not the same job
Most teams buy one tool, use it for both, and end up with outreach that fires on record changes and rules that only run when somebody is being chased.
A sequence is aimed at one person over days: step, wait, step, stop. A workflow fires the moment a record changes, and is over in a second. Keeping them separate is why neither has to pretend to be the other.
- Sequence — multi-step, days long, aimed at a person
- Workflow — one trigger, one moment, aimed at a record
- Most teams end up running both, for different jobs
Triggers on the four objects people actually work
Automation that only watches deals cannot help with the half of the job that happens before a deal exists.
Triggers run on leads, contacts, companies and activities as well as deals — created, updated, stage changed, field changed, gone quiet. The condition layer then decides whether this particular record is the one you meant.
- Leads, contacts, companies and activities
- Conditions on the record’s own fields, including your custom ones
- Nothing fires on records the actor cannot see
Six actions, and one of them leaves the building
A rule that can only set a field is a tidier way of doing nothing.
Update a field, assign an owner, create a task, send an email, enrol the record in a sequence, or call an outbound webhook. The last one is how a won deal reaches your ERP without anybody re-keying it.
- Assignment to a named person, not a shared queue
- Email actions use the same templates and merge fields
- Webhooks fire on record change, with one API key per integration
The run log, because “the CRM changed it somehow” is not an answer
The moment automation touches a field, somebody will ask who changed it, and the honest answer has to be better than a shrug.
Every run is logged on the record: what fired, what it matched, what it did and when. Field edits made by an automation are as attributable as field edits made by a person, and they sit in the same audit trail as stage changes, deletions and exports.
- A run log per record
- Automated edits attributable, not anonymous
- The same audit trail as permissions and exports
It should get quieter, not louder
The failure mode of sales automation is volume: four tools mailing the same person on the same morning.
Exit criteria end a thread rather than running it to the last step. A sending window holds mail to working hours. Enrolment is a deliberate action — nothing enrols a whole list because a field happened to change.
- Exit criteria on every sequence
- A sending window per sequence
- Open and click tracking per step, so you can stop what is not read
The rest of it, without the paragraphs.
Triggers
- A record is created
- A field changes
- A deal moves stage
- A deal sits past its rotting threshold
- A record has nothing scheduled
- On leads, contacts, companies and activities
Conditions
- Match on the record’s own fields
- Custom fields included
- Value, stage, owner and dates
- Combine conditions on one rule
- A skipped run is logged too
Actions
- Update a field
- Assign an owner
- Create a task
- Send an email
- Enrol in a sequence
- Call an outbound webhook
Sequences
- Multi-step cadence over days
- Exit criteria stop the thread
- A sending window per sequence
- Open and click tracking per step
- Templates with merge fields
- A default mailbox per sequence
Prebuilt
- React to a deal moving stage
- Chase a rotting deal after N days
- Welcome a new deal into a chosen stage
- Add activities as a deal progresses
- Follow up on an unresponsive deal
- Re-engage a deal with nothing scheduled
- Mirror one field when another changes
Accountability
- A run log per record
- Automated edits attributable to the rule
- The same audit trail as permissions and exports
- Integration installs logged with who and when
- One API key per integration
Three automation things we do not have.
All three exist in tools you are probably comparing us with. If one of them is the reason you are buying, buy accordingly.
Reply detection NOT SHIPPED
Sequences stop on the exit criteria you set — a reply you mark, or an unsubscribe. Nothing watches the mailbox and stops them on its own yet. This is the gap we are asked about most, and it is on the roadmap rather than in the product.
Round-robin routing NOT SHIPPED
A workflow can assign an owner, which covers a rule like “western region goes to Ritu”. What it does not do is distribute incoming leads evenly across a team by turn, and we are not going to describe the first as the second.
Next-best-action AI NOT HERE
No model ranks your deals, predicts a win probability or recommends the next step. The rules here do what you told them to do, and you can read afterwards exactly what that was.
About automation specifically.
What is the difference between a sequence and a workflow?
A sequence is a cadence aimed at one person over days — step, wait, step — and it stops on its exit criteria. A workflow is a rule that fires the moment a record changes and is over in a second. Most teams end up using both, for different jobs, which is why they are separate here rather than one builder pretending to be both.
Do I have to build anything to get value?
No. Seven automations ship ready to switch on: reacting to a stage change, chasing a rotting deal, welcoming a new deal into a chosen stage, adding activities as a deal progresses, following up on an unresponsive deal, re-engaging a deal with nothing scheduled, and mirroring one field when another changes. The canvas is there when one of those is not quite it.
What can an automation actually do?
Update a field, assign an owner, create a task, send an email, enrol the record in a sequence, or call an outbound webhook. The webhook is the one that matters for integration — a won deal can tell your ERP without anybody re-keying it.
Can I see what an automation did to a record?
Yes. Every run is logged on the record it touched: what fired, what it matched, what it did and when. Skipped runs are logged too. It sits in the same audit trail as stage changes, deletions, permission changes and exports, so “the CRM changed it somehow” is never the answer.
Will it email customers at the wrong time?
A sequence carries a sending window, so steps are held to working hours. Exit criteria end the thread when you mark a reply or the contact unsubscribes. What the product does not do yet is detect a reply on its own — that stop is one you mark, and we would rather say so here.
Is automation gated behind a higher plan?
Every plan carries all nine modules, automation included. What the tiers change is how deep the automation goes, what the reporting does, and the controls a larger team needs. There is no minimum seat count and no minimum term.
Start with Comsky CRM.
Grow into the ecosystem.
One account opens every Comsky product — and one invoice covers them, however many you run.