You will build one complete automation beyond the welcome sequence, test every branch, and switch it on.
Most automations that fail do so quietly. A branch nobody tested sends the wrong email to the wrong people for months. A condition checks a tag that is never added, so half the flow never runs. The owner assumes it is working because nobody complained. This project is about building one flow properly, so you know it works because you watched every branch do what it should.
Build one complete automation flow beyond your welcome sequence, test every branch, and switch it on. Use the flow you drew in lesson 7.1, Every automation is a trigger, a condition and an action, or one of the two you chose in lesson 7.2, The flows worth setting up first. Choose the one that fixes the biggest leak in your business today. Plan for about fifty minutes of building and testing, plus the time it takes to write the emails.
You will finish with a live flow, a saved diagram of it, and exit rules that match what you learned in lesson 7.3.
Before opening the flow builder, write every email in the flow in one document, as you did for the welcome sequence in lesson 4.4. For each, note its subject line, preview text, body, single link, and which branch and position it sits in.
Writing first makes the tool work pure assembly. It also shows you whether the flow makes sense as a sequence. Read the emails on each branch in order, as one subscriber would receive them. A parent on the "did not book" branch of Priya's enquiry flow should read a coherent story: here are the slots, here are answers to common questions, and then a personal message from Priya. If two emails on one branch say nearly the same thing, merge or cut one.
Open your tool's flow builder and recreate your drawing. Set the trigger first and check it is something the tool can detect, as lesson 7.1 described. Add the delays, conditions and emails in order, pasting text from your document. Set sender name and reply address on every email.
Add the exit condition: the event that should take someone out of the flow, usually the purchase, booking or reply the flow exists to produce. Check the newsletter exclusion or frequency setting from lesson 7.3, so people in this flow are not also getting a pile of other marketing.
Then add an internal notification where a human follow-up would help more than another email. In an enquiry flow, that might be a notification to you when a parent has not booked after two emails. In an abandoned cart flow for a high-value order, it might be a note to call or message the customer. Most tools can send an internal email to an address you choose. The notification should say who the person is and what they did, so you can act without searching.
A flow with two conditions has at least three paths, and each one needs a test contact that meets its conditions. Create test contacts with personal addresses you control, or with the plus trick many inboxes support, where yourname+test1 at your provider still reaches you. Then walk each test contact down a different branch.
For Priya's enquiry flow, that meant three tests. Test one submitted the enquiry form and then booked a trial straight away, which should exit to the confirmation and reminder. Test two submitted and did not book, then booked after the follow-up email, which should exit at that point. Test three submitted and never booked, which should end with a notification to Priya.
Shorten the delays while testing if your tool allows a test mode or if you build a temporary copy with short delays, as in lesson 4.4. For each test, write down which emails arrived, in what order, and whether the notification fired. Compare against your diagram. Any difference is a bug.
Priya's first round showed that test two received the "Still thinking about it?" email after booking. The booking tag was added by her calendar connection a few minutes late, after the condition had already checked. She added a short wait before the condition and the second round passed.
Once every branch behaves, switch the flow on for real contacts. Then save a diagram of the flow as built, either a screenshot of the tool's canvas or a clean redraw of your paper version, labelled with each email's subject line and the condition on every branch. This is what you, or anyone helping you, will use at the next review.
Watch the first few real contacts go through over the following week. Check that each one took the branch you expected.
A finished flow is switched on for real contacts and has passed a test on every branch, with test results written down. It has an exit condition for the goal, protection against overlapping with your newsletter, and at least one internal notification where a person should step in. Its diagram is saved with every subject line and branch condition. The activity below asks you to switch on that tested flow and save its diagram as your record.
Switch on one tested automation flow and save a diagram of it with each email's subject line and the condition on every branch.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).