How to trigger other Tasks/Messages/Automations to start upon Task completion

There are 2 ways to determine when a Task/Message/Automation starts:

Select a fixed date on the experience timeline – e.g. this Message should send 3 days before the employee's last day at work
Set a trigger – eg this Automation to make a Jira ticket should run as soon as the "Choose your hardware" Task is completed

This article explains how to set up triggered Timeline Items, which start when a specified Task completes.

When might you want to use triggered Timeline Items?
How to set up a task/message/automation to be triggered by a task completion
How to combine triggered Timeline Items and Target Audiences, to create conditional branching
How triggered Timeline Items work

When might you want to use triggered Timeline Items?

Setting up Tasks/Messages/Automations to be triggered by Task completions has a wide range of different use-cases:

As soon as HR confirms a leaver's last day at work, inform Payroll
Ask a new hire for their hardware preferences, then immediately create a ticket for IT requesting their equipment
Block access to the next steps in onboarding, until a new hire completes critical compliance training
Ask a manager to approve their direct report's enrollment in training, before any of the training content is sent

How to set up a task/message/automation to be triggered by a task completion

This setting is easy to configure.

Go to the Experience page in Dado, and go into Edit mode
First, create both the triggering Task, and the Task/Message/Automation that should start upon that task's completion
Open up the Task/Message/Automation that should start when the triggering Task completes
In the left column, click on the Edit link for the section called Start and Deadline (for Tasks), Trigger Date (for Automations), or Send Date (for Messages)
You'll now see the option to select between a Fixed date and starting After the completion of another task
- Select the latter option
- Then select the triggering task in the dropdown

Save the changes to this Task/Message/Automation by clicking the save button in the top right of the window
When you're ready, save the changes to the Experience.

How to combine triggered Timeline Items and Target Audiences, to create conditional branching

It's possible to create a conditional flow through your Dado Experience, where responses to a Task affect what Tasks/Messages/Automations trigger next.

Let's take as an example a flow where managers are asked what kinds of system access a new hire needs; and a Jira ticket is created to request that access. If the manager requests no access, no Jira ticket should be created.

To build this flow, you would do the following:

Create a custom field to hold the manager's selections of what access the new hire should get. (How to create a custom field)
Create a manager task with a Select Option sub-task for selecting the extra access
- Make sure to include a "None" or "None of the above" option
Add a Data Destination for your Select Option sub-task, that syncs the manager's answers to your new custom field
Save the manager task
Add a new Automation to your experience that includes a Create Jira Ticket action
Set the Automation to start when your manager Task is completed
Add a Target Audience to the Automation, that includes any new hires whose managers selected anything apart from "None of the above".
- See our help article on Target Audiences
Hide your Create Jira Ticket action from the Everyone Else Target Audience, and show it for your new Target Audience. (Here's a reminder of how to do this)
- Don't forget to save the changes to your Target Audiences in the left hand column!
- This way, the Automation will run only for people whose managers did NOT select None of the Above.
Save the Automation and, when you've finished with all your changes, save the Experience.

How triggered Timeline Items work

When the triggering task is completed, all the triggered Messages, Tasks and Automations are queued up to start. They will start within a few seconds.

Only the first completion counts

Once the triggering task has been completed once, a second completion will NOT trigger the follow-on Messages/Tasks/Automations to happen again

What happens when the triggering Task is completed early

If the triggering Task is completed early, the triggered Messages/Tasks/Automations will start upon the Task's designated start-date

For instance:

a new hire has a task to select their equipment that starts 2 weeks before their first day at work. That task is set up to trigger the creation of a service desk request.
One particular new hire is very keen, and completes that task 1 week early.
The service desk request will be created exactly 2 weeks before the first day at work

Only Tasks can trigger Timeline Items

Only Tasks have a definition of done, so only they can trigger other Timeline Items.

If you'd like something to happen after a Message is sent or an Automation is run, pick a fixed start date & time a little after the start date and time of that Message/Automation.

A Timeline Item can only be triggered by one Task

It's not possible to trigger the start Timeline Item when multiple Tasks have been completed. You must choose only one Task to trigger other items.

You can't skip triggered Timeline Items until they've been triggered – except if you skip the whole chain

If you skip a Task that triggers a Message and Automation, all three Timeline Items will be skipped.

It's not possible to skip the triggered Timeline Items before the Task that triggers them is completed.

If the initial Task is never completed, the triggered Timeline Items will never start

If a triggering Task is left un-done, then any other Tasks/Messages/Automations that should be triggered by its completion will not happen.

This means you should be careful when setting up long chains of triggered Timeline Items.

You can build chains of triggered Tasks

In your experience, you can build out a series of Tasks where Task A triggers Task B, and Task B triggers Task C.