Triggers

A trigger is the event that starts a workflow. When the event fires and any entry conditions pass, a new run is created and the workflow begins executing.

Each workflow has exactly one trigger. You choose the trigger in Step 1 of the Guided Editor or by placing the trigger node in the visual builder.

Trigger Categories

Triggers are grouped into categories based on the area of your business they relate to.

Lead Activity

Estimates

Jobs

Invoicing

Appointments

Communication

System

Manually Enroll Existing Contacts

Use an active Manual Trigger workflow when you need to start automation for clients or leads that already existed before the workflow was activated, such as records imported through the API or Zapier.

From the workflow detail page, select Enroll Clients. You can search by name, email, or phone; filter by source, status, and tag; select multiple clients; and enroll them together. The Enrollments tab records who enrolled each client, when it happened, and whether the run is still active.

You can also select records on the Clients or Leads page and use the bulk Enroll in Automation action. Only active Manual Trigger workflows are available in the picker.

Before a run starts, Clean Estimate Pro checks the workflow's communication steps. A contact is skipped when required email or phone information is missing, when an SMS opt-out is recorded on the client or a linked lead, or when that client already has an active enrollment in the workflow. Skipped contacts do not prevent other eligible selections from enrolling.

Manual enrollment requires Automations manage permission.

Trigger Configuration

Some triggers need extra configuration to tell the engine exactly when to fire.

Job Status Changed

When you select this trigger, a dropdown appears asking which status transition should activate the workflow. For example, you might choose "en_route" to send the customer a text that the crew is on the way.

Appointment Upcoming

This trigger asks for a number of minutes before the appointment and which appointment type you want to target:

• Lead or Estimate for site visits, estimate appointments, and pre-job sales visits
• Job for scheduled service work

• 1440 minutes (24 hours) for a day-before reminder
• 120 minutes (2 hours) for a same-day heads-up

Phone Triggers

Phone triggers fire from the shared telecom number tied to your workspace.

• Call Received is the first event, fired as soon as CE Pro accepts the inbound call.
• Missed Call fires when the office forwarding leg is not answered.
• Voicemail Received fires after the active provider provides the voicemail recording. In Esendex Phase 1, inbound voicemail recording playback is not live yet.
• Call Answered fires when a call leg is answered.
• Call Completed fires only when the call actually completes, not when the call ends as no-answer, busy, failed, or canceled.

For phone triggers, the workflow context can include caller number, destination number, duration, voicemail transcript, and any confidently matched client or estimate.

Lead Source Match

Enter the lead source name that should activate the workflow. This is useful when you want different follow-up flows for Google Ads leads versus referral leads.

Recurring Schedule

Define a cron schedule and an audience query. The engine evaluates the audience query to find matching contacts, then creates one run per contact. Use this for things like quarterly win-back campaigns or monthly check-ins.

One Trigger Per Workflow

Each workflow can only have one trigger. If you need the same set of steps to run for different events, you have two options:

1. Duplicate the workflow and change the trigger on the copy.
2. Use the "Enroll in Workflow" step from one workflow to chain into another.

Tips

• Start with the most common triggers: Lead Created, Estimate Sent, and Job Completed. These three cover the majority of field service automation use cases.
• Test your trigger using the Test Run button on the workflow detail page before activating. It simulates the trigger with mock data so you can preview what happens.
• Recurring schedule triggers are powerful but should be used carefully. Make sure your audience query is scoped correctly so you do not message customers who have opted out or are already in active workflows.

If you are replacing a legacy Follow-Up Sequence, activate the new workflow on the same trigger so CE Pro routes new events through the automation engine instead of sending duplicate outreach from both systems.