Automations (the canvas builder)

Automations are in beta and still under active development, so the canvas builder will keep changing while we refine it. Automations run a sequence of steps automatically when something happens in your CRM. Build them on a visual canvas at Workflows in the sidebar. Available on the Hunter and Apex plans.

The Automations page has two tabs. "Your automations" lists what you have built, grouped by status (Active, Paused, Drafts) with run counts. "Recipe catalog" is a gallery of ready-made automations grouped by job (Popular, Notifications, Follow-ups, Deliverability, Scheduled, Sync and connectors, AI plays), for example "Reply, then stop campaigns for that contact", "Deal won, then log to Google Sheet", or "Every Monday 9am, then pipeline review task". Click "Use this" and it drops a fully wired draft you can tweak and activate. Each recipe card shows small app icons for the tools it touches (Slack, Discord, Telegram, WhatsApp, Google Sheets, Calendar, a webhook, a schedule, or the AI agent) plus a cost chip: green "Free" for recipes with no AI step, or the estimated AI credits per run for AI plays, so cost is visible before you pick one. A search box at the top of the catalog filters every recipe by app or keyword, so typing "google sheets" surfaces every recipe that writes to a sheet.

How to build one from scratch: open Workflows, click New automation, then drag nodes from the left palette onto the canvas and connect them top-to-bottom. Every automation starts with one Trigger (for example "Reply received", "Deal won", "Contact created", an Incoming webhook, or a Schedule), then flows into Logic and Action steps. Click any node to configure it in the right-hand panel. Click Save to keep a draft, or Save & activate to turn it on.

Node types: Triggers start the automation (16 CRM events, an incoming webhook URL you can POST to, or a Schedule that fires daily, weekly, or monthly at a Singapore time you pick, for example every Monday 09:00). Logic nodes shape the flow: Branch (an if/else with a true and a false output), Filter (stop unless a condition holds), and Delay (wait minutes, hours, or days before continuing). Action nodes change your CRM: set a pipeline stage, assign a teammate, add or remove from a list, add to suppression, stop campaigns, enrol the contact in another campaign (the engine behind "openers or repliers flow into my next campaign" loops; suppression and stop-on-reply still apply), create a task, or send an in-app notification. Connector nodes reach other tools: Slack, Telegram, Discord, ClickUp, WhatsApp Business, Google Sheets (append a row to a spreadsheet), Google Calendar (create an event, optionally inviting the contact), and a generic HTTP request node. Slack, Telegram, Discord, ClickUp, and WhatsApp are connected by pasting a webhook URL or token once via the Connections button in the editor (stored encrypted). Google connects with one "Connect Google" sign-in in the same Connections dialog; a single Google connection powers both the Sheets and Calendar steps.

WhatsApp specifics: the WhatsApp step uses your own Meta Cloud API credentials (an access token and phone number ID from developers.facebook.com, pasted once as a connection, plus an optional default recipient). It sends either a free-form text, which Meta only delivers inside the 24-hour window after the recipient last messaged your WhatsApp number, or a template message, which works any time using a template you have approved in your WhatsApp Manager (the node fills the template's first placeholder; Meta bills your Meta account per template message, roughly a few US cents). HuntSales itself charges nothing for the step.

Variables: in any text field you can insert values from the trigger with double curly braces, for example {{trigger.contactName}} or {{trigger.contactEmail}}; the editor shows one-click chips (Name, Email, Company, Deal size) under each message box so you don't have to type them. On the Google Sheets step, click "Load columns from sheet" and the editor reads your sheet's own header row and shows one labelled box per column, so you map data to your real column names exactly like Make or Zapier; "Edit as list" switches back to the raw one-cell-per-line view.

Runs are durable: each run is checkpointed, so a delay resumes later and a failed step retries a few times before pausing the run for your attention. See every run, its steps, and retry a failed one under Run history. Each plan includes a monthly run allowance (Hunter 2,000, Apex 10,000).

AI steps: add an AI agent node to have an assistant read your CRM context and draft or decide, then an Approval node to pause for your yes or no before anything is sent. The agent runs on a hard per-run budget and spends AI credits (a small base plus a step charge, capped per run), and is available on the Hunter and Apex plans. Only AI agent steps cost credits — every other step (actions, connectors, logic) is free — and the editor header shows the estimated AI-credit range for the whole workflow before you run it. Anything that leaves your CRM (an email, a booking) always waits for your approval.

Test run: while editing an automation, click Test run to send a synthetic trigger signal through the whole flow once and see the result. It runs against your most recent contact so the steps have a real target, executes every step for real (so a Slack or Google Sheets step actually posts, which confirms the connection is wired), does not use up your monthly run allowance, and reports pass or fail with the failing step if any. See the full run under Run history.