Feature
Workflow automation in Naffes CRM: follow-ups nobody has to remember
Naffes CRM combines rules that run from day one, such as speed-to-lead alerts and stuck-deal flags, with a visual workflow builder where you choose the trigger and the steps. Workflows send WhatsApp, email and SMS, create tasks and move deals, and a test run shows what every step would do without touching real data.
What automation does for a sales team
Follow-up is the first thing to slip on a busy day. A web form arrives on Thursday evening and nobody answers until Sunday; a proposal sits in the same stage for three weeks before anyone notices. Automation in Naffes turns those habits into written rules that behave the same way every time, however many leads come in.
It works at two levels. Built-in rules watch response speed, idle deals and silent conversations without any setup. On top of that, you design workflows for your own process: a trigger such as a stage change or an incoming WhatsApp message, followed by messages, tasks, conditions and waits.
Building a workflow, step by step
Create it
Open Workflows (/workflows-v2) and click New workflow to get a blank visual canvas.
Set the trigger
Click the trigger card and pick an event such as Deal won, Message received or Web form submitted, then add filters if you need them.
Add steps
Add actions, an if/else condition, a wait, or an AI summary or classification step, and configure each one in the inspector panel. Steps can be reordered.
Save
Saving publishes a new version. The first save of a draft switches the workflow on; saving a paused workflow keeps it paused.
Test and watch
Test run simulates the saved version: nothing is sent and no data changes. To test before the workflow reacts to live events, pause it after saving, run the test, then follow step-by-step results in the Runs tab.
The Workflows page also counts active, paused and draft workflows, runs in the last 30 days and the success rate, so an admin can spot a workflow that is failing quietly before a customer does.
Triggers, conditions and step types
There are 27 built-in triggers. Deals fire on created, updated, stage changed, won, lost and deleted; contacts on created, updated, lifecycle stage changed and deleted; companies on created, updated and deleted. Beyond records, a workflow can start when an activity is logged, a WhatsApp or SMS message is received or sent, a web form is submitted, the bot hands a conversation to a human, a quote is sent, accepted or declined, an invoice is issued, paid, overdue or voided, or a payment arrives. The 27th, 'on a schedule', exists too, although schedules are created through the API for now.
The 20 step types cover four jobs:
- Change the record: update a deal field, assign the owner, move the stage, add or remove a tag, create a custom-object record.
- Tell people: create a task, add a note, send an in-app notification to teammates.
- Reach the customer: send an email, save an email draft, send a WhatsApp message, send an approved WhatsApp template, send an SMS.
- Control and connect: wait, branch with if/else, make an HTTP request to any public URL, write an AI summary to a field, run an AI classification.
Conditions use 13 operators, from equals and greater than to contains, starts with and is empty. The deal, contact and company 'updated' triggers also understand changed, changed from and changed to, so a workflow can fire only when, say, a deal's owner actually changes. A condition step either stops the run or splits it into ordered if/else branches.
WhatsApp steps and send pacing
WhatsApp is built into automation rather than bolted on. Message triggers can filter by channel, by a first message from an unknown sender, or by whether the 24-hour window is open. WhatsApp, template and SMS steps post into the same conversation the team sees in the inbox, so a rep who picks up the thread has the full history.
Meta sets the rule that shapes these steps: a customer's message opens a 24-hour customer service window that resets each time they write again, and outside it a business may send only pre-approved templates. So when the window is closed, only the template step reaches the customer. Adding a Send WhatsApp template step lists your approved templates, and each variable can be filled from the record, for example {{contact.first_name}}, with a preview.
To protect your numbers from being banned, Naffes paces outbound sends per workspace: 20 WhatsApp messages, 20 SMS and 60 emails per minute by default. A run that reaches the limit pauses and resumes on the same step, so no message is dropped.
A worked example: trigger on Web form submitted, send a welcome template with the customer's first name, create a call task for the owner due today, wait one day, then check the deal stage. If it is still in the first stage, send an in-app notification to the sales manager.
Rules that run without a workflow
- Speed to lead: if nobody reaches a new deal by message, logged call or email, the owner is alerted after a quarter of an hour and managers after 60 minutes, or at once when the deal has no owner. Admins can change both times or switch either off.
- Stuck deals: a deal that outstays its stage's typical days is flagged Watch, Stuck or Frozen at 1x, 2x and 3x the budget by default.
- Silence rules: the assignee hears after a customer has waited 2 hours, managers after 24, one follow-up goes out after 48 hours of customer silence, and after 14 days the thread closes and its deal is marked lost. Every value can be changed or switched off.
- Conversation-driven stages: a rep's reply moves the deal to contacted, bot qualification to qualified and a booked meeting to consultation, forward only and on open deals only.
- Lead routing: territory rules give every new ownerless contact an owner, a named user or round-robin within a team, whether it came from manual entry, import, API or a web form.
Retries, waits and AI steps
A failing action is retried up to 3 times with growing delays; after that the failure is recorded and the remaining steps still run. A broken condition, by contrast, stops the run so nothing is sent on bad logic. Wait steps resume through the server's job queue, and runs stuck on a dead worker are cleaned up every minute.
The AI summary step runs a prompt that pulls placeholders from the triggering record and can write the result to a field; AI classification picks one label from your list with a confidence score. A failed AI call is retried and logged without blocking the rest of the workflow, and a test run shows the resolved prompt without calling the model.
Limits and what to expect
- Workflows start at the Starter plan: 5 on Starter, 50 on Pro and unlimited on Enterprise, none on Free. See pricing.
- The 'on a schedule' trigger exists, but scheduled jobs can be created only through the API today, so a daily 9 a.m. workflow cannot be set up from the interface alone.
- There is no for-each loop step, no library of ready-made workflow templates, and no dedicated 'deal stuck' or 'email received' trigger.
- Version history, rollback and retrying a failed run are API-only.
- The Slack step needs an incoming-webhook URL the builder has no field for. For Slack posts on every deal stage change, use the Slack app in the Marketplace instead.
- No automation action assigns a conversation; threads are assigned by people or by a bot handoff.
- The silence-rule follow-up is fixed text, and the WhatsApp template it needs outside the 24-hour window can be set only as a server setting, so with default settings the WhatsApp follow-up is usually skipped.
- Sales sequences run WhatsApp-template, wait, task and condition steps, but their email steps do not send today. Use workflows for automated email.
Questions
Questions 4
Can a workflow message a customer on WhatsApp after the 24-hour window closes?
Only with an approved template. Free-form WhatsApp steps are not delivered outside the window, while the Send WhatsApp template step is, because that is what Meta allows.
What happens if a step fails halfway through a run?
The action is retried up to 3 times with increasing delays. If it still fails, the failure is logged in the run history and the remaining steps continue. A broken condition is the exception: it stops the run.
Can I test a workflow without contacting real customers?
Yes. Test run is a dry-run simulation that sends nothing, changes no data and shows each step's result. It needs a saved version, and the first save switches a draft on, so pause the workflow after saving if you want to test before it reacts to real events.
Do I need a paid plan for automation?
Custom workflows need Starter or above: 5 on Starter, 50 on Pro and unlimited on Enterprise. Inbox silence rules, by contrast, are switched on by default in every workspace.