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Building an automation is only half of it. This page covers everything from the moment you press Publish: what Senderz checks, what to do when a check fails, how to test safely, and where the numbers live once it is running.

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Before you can publish anything

Your workspace has to accept the sending compliance step in onboarding first. Until it does, every publish is refused with:
Sending compliance must be accepted before publishing. Complete the compliance step in onboarding.
This is a one-time workspace setting, not a per-automation one. Once it is accepted, it never blocks you again.

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What publish checks

Senderz runs the same checks in the editor and again on the server, so nothing gets through by refreshing the page.

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Checks that always block

The automation has no trigger, or the trigger card exists but no trigger event was ever saved on it. An automation with no trigger has no way to enrol anyone.
One or more steps cannot be reached by following connectors down from the trigger. This usually happens after you delete a step in the middle of a sequence and leave the ones below it floating. The message names the stranded steps. Reconnect them or delete them.
Message steps are created as drafts, and a draft step is skipped at send time. If every message step in the automation is a draft, and the automation has no data step either, publishing it would enrol contacts and deliver nothing at all.Senderz offers to fix this for you. Press Publish and you get Set all message steps live?, which flips every step that has content to Live and then publishes. Steps with no content stay drafts and are named in the dialog.An automation that only tags a profile, updates a list, notifies your team or calls a webhook has no message steps to check, and publishes on its own.
A message step set to Live must have something to send. For email, SMS and push that means a template. For WhatsApp it means an approved template name. Either add the content or set the step back to Draft.
The reply-to on that step is not a valid email address. Correct it or clear it.
An A/B test step needs at least two outgoing branches, a goal, a traffic split between 10 and 90 percent, and either a test duration or a minimum sample size. A goal set to a custom event also needs the event name.
A wait step in wait-for-event mode needs the event name filled in, and it needs both of its branches connected: one for the event happening and one for the time expiring.
An Update in list step cannot add a contact to a list and remove them from the same list. Pick one side.
A webhook step must post to a public HTTPS address on the default port. Internal, private and localhost addresses are refused when you save the step and checked again at publish, in case the address was set before this rule existed.
An audience filter, exit filter or trigger filter uses a field or operator that Senderz cannot evaluate. Reopen the filter and fix the offending condition.

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A check that only warns

If some draft message steps have no content yet, Senderz tells you how many and offers Publish anyway. Drafts are skipped at send time, so this is safe. It exists so you notice a step you meant to finish.
Draft versus Live on each message step is the single most consequential setting in an automation, and it is easy to miss. A draft step is silently skipped, the contact moves on to the next step, and nothing anywhere reports an error. Check the Live badge on every message step before you publish.

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When a live automation stops being able to send

Edits save automatically a moment after you stop making them, whether the automation is a draft or live. There is no second confirmation, and editing does not re-run the publish checks. That means a live automation can be edited into a state where it enrols people and delivers nothing: set the last live message step back to Draft, delete it, or disconnect it from the trigger. To catch this, the editor shows a red alert at the top of the canvas while the automation is live and broken:
This live automation cannot send
The line underneath names the reason, either no trigger or every message step being a draft. Nothing else in the product warns you, because the send path simply skips the step and moves the contact along, exactly as it would for any other draft. Fix the step, and the alert clears on its own.

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Editing a live automation

You do not need to pause first. Edits apply to the running automation as soon as they save. What that means for contacts already inside it:
  • A contact who has not reached a step yet gets the new version of it. Change the copy on step three and everyone still on step one receives the change.
  • A contact parked on a wait resumes into the edited automation and continues from where they were.
  • A contact parked on a step you delete stops there. Their journey is marked complete and they receive nothing further from this automation. Because the default re-entry setting is once only, they will not be enrolled again either. If you are restructuring the middle of a live automation, pause it first.
  • Changing a step’s channel or template does not re-send anything already delivered.

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Pausing and resuming

Pause stops the automation enrolling anyone new and stops it delivering. It does not empty it. Contacts already part-way through stay exactly where they are. Their wait timers do not run out and they are not dropped. When you publish the automation again they continue from the step they were parked on. Draft, live and paused are the only three states. Archiving or deleting a live automation pauses it in the same action, and restoring one always returns it paused rather than live, so nothing resumes real sends on a single click. See Automations for the archive and delete lifecycle.

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Test run

Test in the editor header runs the whole automation once, immediately, for one real contact.
1

Pick a recipient

Choose Existing contact and search your contacts, or choose Email address and type one. If that address is not a contact yet, Senderz opens the new contact form so you add it before the test runs. Either way the test always runs against a real contact record.
2

Run it

Every step is walked in order with no waiting. The toast tells you how many messages were queued and across how many steps.
What a test run does: Test messages are marked as tests and do not affect your analytics.
A test run is the only way to see a conditional split resolve for a specific person before you go live. Pick a contact you know sits on each side of the condition and run it twice.

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Adding past profiles

A published automation only reacts to events from the moment it went live. Add past profiles starts eligible existing contacts at the top of it. The button sits on the trigger card and is only enabled once the automation is live.
1

Choose who

Profiles from the last 30 days, profiles from the last 90 days, or profiles since a date you pick. If the trigger is a list subscription you can instead add everyone currently on that list. Contacts added by an earlier backfill are excluded.
2

Estimate

Press Estimate profiles to see the count before you commit to anything.
3

Confirm

The count is rechecked at the moment you confirm. If it has moved since the estimate, Senderz refuses and asks you to review the new number, so you never approve one figure and enrol a different one.
This can send real messages. Added profiles enter at the first step and go through the automation normally. Audience and exit rules, consent and suppression, quiet hours and Shabbat safeguards, and Smart Sending all still apply, but if your first step is a live email, people will receive it.
Two things worth knowing:
  • Each added contact keeps the real date of the event that qualified them. Someone who abandoned a cart three weeks ago is enrolled with that date, not with today’s. This matters because exit rules that ask about behaviour “since starting this automation” then measure from the real event. Without it, an “already purchased” exit rule would never fire and buyers would receive abandonment mail.
  • Not every trigger can be backfilled. Senderz can only add past profiles where it already holds the history. If it cannot, the panel says so plainly rather than adding a partial audience.
Progress shows in the panel while the job runs, and you get a count when it finishes. If it fails you get a notification and no further profiles are added.

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Version history

The clock icon in the editor header opens Version history.
  • Saves and publishes are kept for 90 days.
  • Select a version to preview the automation it contained, including its step count.
  • Each entry shows what happened, when, and who did it: Created, Saved, Published or Restored.
Restore to draft replaces the current automation with the selected version. It always comes back as a draft and never goes live automatically, so you review it and publish yourself.

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Reading the numbers

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Per-step performance in the editor

Select a message step in a live or paused automation and the inspector shows a Performance card for the last 30 days, with a Live or Paused badge and a View details link through to the full report. The rates on it are open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate and revenue, each calculated against what that step actually sent in the window. Revenue is attributed strict last touch, so an order is credited to the last message the customer engaged with before buying, and never split across several. Steps also carry small open, click and unsubscribe figures on the canvas itself, so you can scan a sequence without opening each one.
These figures only appear once the automation has been published. A draft has no history to report.

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The automation report

Analytics in the editor header, available once the automation has been published, opens the full report for that automation. Below the tiles you get a Conversion rate, an Enrollments over time chart running from the day the automation was created, and an Active by step breakdown showing where contacts are currently sitting. That last one is the fastest way to spot a stuck automation. A large number parked on one step usually means a long wait timer, a condition nobody matches, or a step whose next connector was never drawn.

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Enrollment outcomes

Every contact that enters ends up in one of four states.

Active

Still in the automation, either mid-step or waiting on a timer.

Completed

Reached the end of a path. Also what happens when the step they were parked on is deleted from the automation.

Exited

Removed early by an exit rule, by unsubscribing or reporting spam, or by placing an order in a cart or checkout automation.

Failed

Stopped because the journey hit the 200-step ceiling, which only happens if the connectors form a loop.
All four count toward Enrolled. Active and Completed have their own tiles; Exited and Failed do not.

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Workspace-wide analytics

On the Automations page, switch the view toggle to Analytics for totals across the workspace over a period you choose: last 7, 30 or 90 days, month to date, quarter to date or year to date. You get active automations, total enrolled, average conversion and revenue generated, plus a ranking of your top automations by enrolled, conversion rate or revenue.

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Exporting

Options in the page header exports as CSV or Excel. The export contains exactly the rows and the sort order currently on screen, with these columns: name, status, trigger, channels, steps, enrolled, conversion rate, revenue, revenue per recipient, email revenue, SMS revenue, and when it was last updated. A header block at the top of the file records when it was exported, which filters and sort were applied, and two things about the figures:
  • The totals are lifetime figures for each automation, not limited to the date range you had selected.
  • The email and SMS revenue split does use the selected range, and is attributed last touch.

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Troubleshooting a live automation that is not delivering

Check the Live badge on every message step. A draft step is skipped silently. If every message step is a draft, the red health alert appears at the top of the canvas.
Open the report and read Active by step. A long wait timer is normal. A conditional split with an undrawn branch is not: when only one outcome is wired, the other outcome stops the contact rather than sending them down the branch you did draw.
SMS needs an approved sender ID for the workspace. The Automations list has a Sender problems tab that collects automations which hit a sender setup problem in the last 24 hours. See Sender IDs.
It is not meant to. The legal Israeli overnight window and Shabbat block marketing SMS and push. Marketing email is exempt from that legal block, although it still honours your workspace’s own quiet-hours setting. See Quiet hours.
The audience filter is checked at entry, and again before every action step. A contact who stops matching has that step skipped rather than being removed, so the automation can look busier than the delivery figures suggest.