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An automation is built from steps. The palette holds twelve blocks in three groups, and each one does exactly one thing to the contact who reached it. Steps stay locked until you have picked a trigger and pressed Save in the trigger setup panel. Until then the canvas shows Select a trigger to start.

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The palette

Voice calls are not a step you can place in an automation. Voice is still a live Senderz channel for one-time passcodes, but it is not in the palette. See Voice.Goal and End are also not blocks you add. The end marker on the canvas is drawn for you under every last step and under any branch you have not wired up.

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Live and draft steps

This is the setting that catches people out, so read it before anything else. Every message step and every Update in list step carries a delivery state of Live or Draft, and every one of them is created as a Draft. A draft step does nothing at send time. The contact reaches it, the step is skipped, and they move on to the next step as if it were not there. No email goes out, no list changes, and nothing appears in your reports.
A draft step is silent. Nothing in the product tells you afterwards that a contact passed through one and got nothing.It matters more than it looks, because the default re-entry setting is Enter only once. If a contact flows past a draft step today, setting that step live tomorrow will not send them anything. They have already been through, and they cannot be enrolled again.
You set the state on the step itself. Select the step, and the Delivery control at the top of the inspector switches between Live and Draft. On the canvas, each message card shows a Live or Draft badge so you can read the whole automation at a glance. If you press Publish while every message step is still a draft, Senderz offers to set them all live for you in one go, and tells you how many have no content yet and will stay drafts.

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A message step is not required to publish

Since 5 August 2026, an automation does not need a message step at all. An automation that only tags a profile, files someone into a list, notifies your team or calls a webhook is real work, and it publishes on its own. What is still rejected is an automation that would enrol people and do nothing. Publishing is blocked when all three of these are true:
  1. The automation has at least one message step.
  2. Every one of those message steps is a draft.
  3. There is no data action step anywhere in it (Webhook, Update user properties, Update in list, Internal team notification or Grant points).
The message you get is: Every message step is still a draft, so this automation would send nothing. Set at least one step live before publishing. Note what that rule does not cover. Add a single Update in list step and the check passes, even if every message step is still a draft. Wait timers, splits and other logic blocks do not count as work.
A live automation autosaves with no re-check. If you later flip your last live message step back to draft, delete it, or disconnect it, the automation keeps enrolling people and stops delivering. The editor shows a red This live automation cannot send alert when that happens. Nothing else in the product will tell you.

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Message steps

Email, SMS, WhatsApp and Push all send through the same delivery pipeline a campaign uses. Suppression, consent, frequency caps, quiet hours, Shabbat and the SMS credit wallet all apply at send time, on every message.

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The email step inspector

The email step has a fixed set of sections, always in this order.
The step’s name on the canvas, and the Live or Draft switch.
A 30-day summary for this one step: open rate, click rate, unsubscribe rate, placed orders and revenue, plus how many contacts are waiting at this step and how many are about to receive it. It appears once the automation is live or paused, and View details opens the full report.
Subject, Preheader, Sender name and Sender email. These belong to the step, not to the template.
Pick a template, see a live preview with a Mobile and Desktop toggle, and press Edit to open the builder. The template actions menu holds exactly four items: Preview template, Change template, Save as new template and Edit plain text.
Exactly two checkboxes on an email step. Skip recently emailed profiles and Enable UTM tracking. Both are covered below.
Extra conditions a contact must match before this one message sends.
Reply-to and unsubscribe-page pickers are no longer in this panel.

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Sender name and address per step

Each message step can carry its own Sender name and Sender email. When set, they override whatever the template carries. Leave them blank and the template’s sender is used. The sender email still has to be a verified sending address on a verified domain, exactly as it does for a campaign. See Domains and senders.

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Skip recently emailed profiles

Also called smart sending. When it is on, Senderz will not send this message to a contact who already received a message inside your Smart Sending window. The window itself is a workspace setting, not a per-step one. It lives in Settings under Sending Settings, and it holds four separate values, each between 1 and 168 hours: The Adjust the window link on the step takes you straight there. On SMS, WhatsApp and push steps the control is expanded. Turning it on reveals two checkboxes, each showing the window from your settings: Skip if a campaign was sent in the last N hours and Skip if another flow message was sent in the last N hours. Tick either or both.

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UTM tracking

Enable UTM tracking appends UTM parameters to every link in the message, so clicks show up in your own analytics tool. On an email step it is a plain on and off. The values default to a source of senderz, a medium of email and a campaign named after the automation. On an SMS step you also get Source, Medium and Campaign fields to fill in yourself. Leave one blank and it falls back to a source of senderz, a medium of sms and the automation’s name. UTM parameters are applied to email and SMS links only.

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Additional filters and excluded segments

Every message step can carry its own filter on top of the automation’s audience. A contact who does not match skips that one message and carries on. They are not removed from the automation. Non-email steps also get an Exclude segments picker. Contacts in any of the chosen segments skip that message. See Segments.

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SMS quiet hours on a step

SMS, WhatsApp and push steps carry a Respect SMS quiet hours switch, which is on by default, plus a nested Respect Shabbat switch that is also on. Leaving them on is the normal state and is what the law expects. Turning one off is an explicit override that lets that step send inside the 20:00 to 08:00 window, or during Shabbat.
Email steps have no such switch, because marketing email is exempt from the legal Israeli window by product decision. An email step in an automation does not defer overnight. It still honours your own workspace quiet hours setting. See Quiet hours and Shabbat.

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Merge tags from the triggering event

An automation knows what started it, so message steps can use the event’s own data as merge tags. Which ones are available depends on the trigger. Store events pass through {{amount}}, {{currency}}, {{orderId}}, {{externalId}}, {{recoveryUrl}} and {{sourceName}}. A custom event passes through any property you sent with it. Order line items are available as a collection for a for-loop, up to 100 items, each exposing {{item.name}}, {{item.sku}}, {{item.price}}, {{item.quantity}}, {{item.productId}} and {{item.variantId}}.
{{amount}} is the raw amount from the event in major units, for example 249.90. It is not currency-formatted for you.
Six tag names are reserved and event data can never overwrite them: {{firstName}}, {{lastName}}, {{email}}, {{phone}}, {{unsubscribeUrl}} and {{converted}}.

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WhatsApp steps

A WhatsApp step does not use a Senderz template. It sends an approved WhatsApp template from your provider, so the step asks for the template name, a language code, and one parameter per placeholder in that template, in order. Parameters accept merge tags. WhatsApp runs on a shared business number that our team switches on for your workspace, so the block stays locked until it is enabled for you.

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Timing

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Wait

The Wait block has two modes.
Hold the contact for an Amount of Minutes, Hours or Days. The default is 24 hours.Two optional extras stack on top:
  • Also wait until a time holds the contact past the delay until a set hour and minute. You choose whether that clock is the Recipient timezone or the Account timezone.
  • Also wait until certain days only releases the contact on the weekdays you tick.
Combine them to say “wait 3 days, then release at 09:00 on a weekday”.
A contact parked in a wait is not frozen out of everything. Your exit rules are still swept while they wait, so someone who becomes eligible to leave does so without sitting out the rest of the timer.

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Logic

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Conditional split

A conditional split evaluates a filter against the contact and sends them down one of two branches: Yes for a match, No for everyone else. The branch is chosen by the connector you dragged from, not by the order you drew the edges in. The Yes handle always carries matches and the No handle always carries the rest, whichever one you wired first.
A half-wired split stops the contact. If you connect only the Yes branch, a contact who does not match reaches the end of their journey rather than quietly continuing down the branch you did draw. Wire both outcomes unless stopping is what you want.
Use one split inside one automation rather than duplicating the whole automation per segment.

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A/B test

An A/B test splits traffic between Path A and Path B.
  • Split is the percentage sent down Path A, between 10 and 90.
  • Goal metric is one of Open rate, Click rate, Conversion (Placed Order), Revenue per recipient, or a Custom event you name.
  • Duration (hours) and Minimum sample. You need at least one of the two.
  • Automatically promote winner moves future traffic to the significant winner. The change is versioned and reversible.
The assignment is stable per contact. Once someone is put on Path A they stay on Path A for that journey, even if the step runs again. Both branches have to be connected before the automation can publish.

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Data actions

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Update in list

Adds a contact to lists, removes them from lists, or both in the same step.
  • Lists to add and Lists to remove are separate pickers. A list chosen on one side is disabled on the other.
  • A contact already on a list you are adding is skipped, and so is a contact who is not on a list you are removing.
  • This step carries the same Status of Live or Draft as a message step, and it starts as a Draft.
This block works on lists only, never on segments. A list is something you put people on and take them off by hand. A segment is calculated from its own definition, so there is nothing for an automation to change. If you want an automation to move people between audiences, use lists.
A list cannot be both added and removed in the same step. The picker greys out the conflict, and publishing is blocked if one slips through.

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Update user properties

Sets contact properties when the contact reaches this step. Pick a property, then type the value. The value box is typed to the property, and it validates before you save: You can set any custom property, plus these built-in fields: first name, last name, timezone, language, locale and country. Computed fields are not offered, because Senderz calculates them for you and would overwrite whatever you set on the next run. If a property was deleted from your account after you built the step, the row shows it as no longer available with a prompt to pick another or remove it, rather than failing quietly.

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Internal team notification

Posts an alert to your team, not to the contact.
  • Message is the alert text. It appears in the in-app notification bell, linking back to the automation.
  • Also send an email additionally emails the alert to the addresses you list in Recipient emails, comma separated.
Leave the message blank and the step does nothing.

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Webhook

Posts the contact to a POST URL of your choosing when they reach this step.
The address has to be a public HTTPS address on the default port. Internal, private and loopback addresses are rejected, because this step sends contact details to whatever answers.The check runs when you save, again when you publish, and again immediately before each call, since an address that resolved publicly last week can point somewhere else today.
If you want richer delivery, retries and signatures, use outbound webhooks instead.

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Grant points

Adds or removes loyalty points through a connected loyalty app.
  • Loyalty app is Rivo or Yotpo Loyalty and Referrals. Only apps connected to this workspace appear.
  • Points adjustment takes a positive number to grant points or a negative number to take them away.
  • Customer history title is the label the customer sees against the adjustment.
  • Send email from Senderz only stops Rivo sending its own parallel points email. For Yotpo, disable the matching notification in Yotpo itself.
The block is locked until a loyalty app is connected. See Integrations.

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Steps that need setting up first

Four blocks are locked in the palette until a prerequisite is in place. Clicking a locked block explains why and, where you can fix it yourself, links you there. WhatsApp and push run on shared infrastructure that our team provisions, so there is no self-serve screen for them. The dialog says so rather than sending you somewhere useless. While Senderz is still checking, nothing is locked. A block is only greyed out once we know for certain the prerequisite is missing.

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Working on the canvas

1

Add a step

Drag a block from the palette onto the canvas, press the + on a connector to splice a step between two existing ones, or click the connector under a step and pick from the menu. Dropping a block shows an insertion indicator so you can see where it will land.
2

Connect two steps

Drag from a step’s bottom connector onto another step. Valid landing spots highlight as you drag.A step can only lead to one next step, and a path cannot loop back on itself. An invalid target is refused with These steps can’t be connected rather than being silently accepted.
3

Rewire or detach

Drag the arrow head of an existing connection onto a different step to rewire it. Drop it on empty canvas to detach it. The end the connection leaves from does not move.
4

Duplicate

Use Duplicate on the step’s menu. The copy is inserted directly after the original with all of its settings, and it becomes the selected step so you can edit it straight away.
5

Tidy up

Tidy in the header re-lays out the whole canvas. Undo and Redo sit next to it and cover every edit.
Each step’s menu also holds Edit, Edit template on a message step, and Delete.

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The end marker

Senderz draws an end marker under every last step, and under every branch handle you have not wired yet. That is how you spot a half-wired conditional split at a glance. It is drawn for you. There is nothing to place and nothing to delete. If you open an older automation that had a stored end block in it, it is removed on open and the connections are joined across it.

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Publish checks that come from your steps

Most publish failures point at a specific step. These are the ones to know: A single contact’s journey through an automation is capped at 200 steps. The canvas already refuses to let a path loop back on itself, so this is a backstop rather than something you will meet in normal use. A contact who does hit it stops there.

Automations overview

What an automation is, how to create one, and the draft, live and paused lifecycle.

Templates and content

The email builder, SMS and push templates, and merge tags.

Segments

Building the audiences you filter a step against.

Quiet hours and Shabbat

Which channels defer, and which are exempt.