Automate Your Workflows in Apollo

Rules Engine allows you to automatically take actions in Apollo that would have previously required manual input. Because of this, your reps can now reallocate their efforts towards selling to the right people at the right time, rather than spend time updating Apollo. 

Main Rules Engine Page

You can create, edit, organize, and search for all of your rules in Settings > Rules Engine, and each rule will have a toggle and checkbox next to it. The toggle will either enable or disable the rule, while the checkbox allows you to organize rules under a folder.

Rule Setup

1. Rule Details

Once you create a rule, the first thing you will see is the Rule Details modal. From here you can set high level details about your rule, such as its name, a description of its intended function, and which folder it can be found in.

After that, you will need to determine two primary settings:

1. Whether the Rule is referencing activity from Contacts or Accounts
   • Note: Rules cannot yet run off of users (i.e. Send me an email when I hit my daily call quota), opportunities (i.e. Opportunity is X days old, task rep to follow up), or activity caused by another rule (i.e. some rule takes an action that is the trigger for another rule).
     
2. Whether the 'Rule Type' is Triggered or Batched (configurable only after selecting the 'Activity from' setting)
   • Triggered: The Rule will only run when the specified trigger (detailed later) is satisfied.
   • Batched: The Rule will run on a recurring basis, specified by you (detailed later).
     • Note: If you select this option then you won't be able to see the Triggers modal (detailed later). This also means that you will only see 4 modals out of a possible 5. 

2. Triggers

Specific actions that cause your rule to run.

Possible Triggers

• Account Created*
• Account Updated*
• Contact Created*
• Contact Updated*
• Contact Added to Sequence*
• Contact Did First Step Of Sequence*
• Contact Finished Sequence*
• Email Sent
• Email Bounced
• Email Replied
• Email Unsubscribed
• Email Opened
• Email Clicked
• Email Not Sent
• Call Logged

*Note: The account-based triggers are only available if you select 'Account' in Rule Details > Activity from (step 1). The contact-based triggers are only available if you select 'Contact' in Rule Details > Activity from (step 1). The others are available regardless of what you select.

All triggers except for 'Contact Created' and 'Account Created' allow you to further specify your parameters, so be sure to configure these as well. For example, the 'Contact Updated' trigger allows you to choose which specific contact fields (and updates) activate the rule.

In this case, the optional fields are: First Name, Last Name, Email, Title, Company Name, Account, Contact Stage, Contact Owner, Linkedin URL, Location, and Custom Field. So, if we are building a trigger off of a contact update, we can also look for specific before and after scenarios that will activate the trigger.

For example, the screen below shows a trigger that will automate some action (specified in the 'Actions' section, detailed below) whenever contacts have their stage updated from 'Unresponsive' to 'Replied'.

Note: You can add as many Triggers as you like, but keep in mind that they are not additive. This means that if you have two or more triggers in a rule, your rule will run whenever any of those triggers are satisfied.

3. Filters

What types of attributes your contacts or accounts must have in order for the rule to run.  

Possible Filters

All of the same Contact, Account, and Customer Profile filters shown on the Prospect Searcher, Contacts, and Accounts pages also appear in this section. 

• Note: Filters are optional when your 'Rule Type' is Triggered.

4. Actions

What the rule does for you in Apollo. 

Possible Actions/Steps

1. Wait
2. Set Contact Field
3. Add to Contact Lists
4. Remove from Contact Lists
5. Add Contact to Sequence
6. Finish Contact Sequences
7. Create Contact Task
8. Set Account Field
9. Add to Account Lists
10. Remove from Account Lists
11. Create Account Task

Important Note: You can build rules to take actions on accounts when contacts are updated, but you cannot build rules to take actions on contacts when accounts are updated.

Building off of the examples used in the 'Triggers' and 'Actions' sections (above), the screenshot below shows a rule that will add contacts to a 'Revived contacts' list whenever their stage is changed from 'Unresponsive' to 'Replied'.

5. Schedule

Allows you to determine how often a rule can be run after its conditions are satisfied. Note that if you have Triggered selected as your chosen 'Rule Type' then this section will only offer 'Qualification Rules' -

If you have Batched set as your 'Rule Type', then you will see additional options for 'Schedule Recurrence' -

For any other questions, feel free to reach out to us by emailing support@apollo.io, or by clicking the (?) Support widget at the bottom right corner of this page. We're always happy to help!

Related Resources:

• Standard Rules (examples of simple, effective Rules you can easily configure with Rules Engine)