Overview

Until now, a form automation ran at the moment someone pressed submit. That works when the form itself tells you everything you need to know, and it does not work when you want to read the application, interview the person, and only then decide what happens next.

A status-change automation waits. You set the submission to a status of your choosing, and the rule runs then. This article is for administrators who screen or interview people before moving them forward.

Good to know: these rules run on a status change, after the submission already exists. The status a submission is given the moment it arrives does not set them off, so your form's default status stays safe to use.

1. What is a status-change automation?

It is a rule with two halves. The first half is a status you pick, for example Accepted or a custom one you created such as Selected. The second half is what should happen when a submission reaches that status.

Nothing happens to submissions sitting on any other status. That is the whole point: the rule only acts on the people you have decided about.

2. What problem does this solve?

Assigning only the people you actually chose.

Before this, the only way to put applicants into an onboarding sequence automatically was to put everyone who applied into it, then take out the people you did not want. Now you can interview first and let the decision do the work.

The pattern most organizations want: create two statuses, Selected and Not selected. Add one rule that assigns your onboarding sequence when the status becomes Selected. Add nothing at all for Not selected. Interview, pick a status, and the right half of your applicants start onboarding on their own.

3. Where do I set one up?

1. Open the form and go to Settings & Automations.
2. Scroll to When the submission status changes.
3. Select Manage automations.
4. Select New automation.
5. Under When the status becomes, pick the status that should set the rule off.
6. Pick what it should do, fill in the target, and save.

The card tells you at a glance which statuses already have rules on them, so you can see what a form does without opening the builder.

4. Which statuses can I use?

Any status that appears on the submission dropdown for that form. That means the built-in statuses and any you created yourself under Submission statuses and Manage statuses in the same Settings & Automations pane.

Custom statuses are usually the better choice here, because a word like Selected or Interviewed says what your team actually decided.

Leaving it blank is not nothing. If you do not pick a status under When the status becomes, the rule runs on every status change on that form, including the ones meaning no. Pick a status unless you genuinely want that.

5. What can a status change do?

The same eight actions you already have on the question-level automations:

• Auto-assign sequences
• Auto-assign opportunities
• Auto-assign profile tags
• Auto-assign sites
• Notify admins about this submission
• Notify admins (custom email)
• Notify the user (custom email)
• Set submission status

You can add several rules to one status. A single move to Selected can assign the onboarding sequence, tag the profile, and email the person, all at once.

6. Does it matter how the status was changed?

No. The rule runs whichever way the status moved:

• An admin picking it by hand on the submission.
• A question-level automation setting it on submission.
• A sequence step automation setting it part way through onboarding.

That last one is worth knowing. You can let the end of a screening step mark the submission, and let the status rule carry the person onward from there.

7. What if I set the same status twice, or change my mind?

Setting a status that is already set does nothing. The rule needs an actual change.

Moving someone away from a status and back again does run the rule a second time, but anything already done is skipped rather than repeated. Someone who is already in the sequence is not added twice, and a tag they already have is not added again.

8. Will the applicant know their status changed?

Only if you choose to tell them. Submission statuses are for your team and are not shown to the person who submitted.

If you do want them told, add a Notify the user (custom email) action to the rule and write the message yourself. This is the one way a status change reaches the applicant, so a status you use purely for internal tracking stays internal.

9. Where can I see what ran?

Two places:

• On the form, Automations summary lists every rule the form carries, including the status ones, with the status that sets each off.
• On an individual submission, the automations section groups what ran under Triggered by a status change, separately from what ran because of the answers and what runs on every submission.

A rule that matched but had nothing left to do is shown as skipped rather than hidden, so you can tell the difference between a rule that did not run and a rule that ran and found the person already enrolled.

Summary

• A status-change automation runs when a submission reaches a status you choose.
• Set it up in Settings & Automations, under When the submission status changes.
• Use it to onboard only the people you select, instead of everyone who applies.
• Leaving the status blank makes the rule run on every status change.
• The same eight actions as question-level rules are available, and several can share a status.
• It runs whether an admin, a question rule or a sequence step changed the status.
• The applicant is told only if you add a Notify the user action.

Where to go next

• How do Form statuses work?
• Where can a form automation sit, and which level should I use?

Still stuck? You can submit a ticket, or email us at support@vomevolunteer.zohodesk.com.