Overview
Sales workflows in SalesExec rely on a shared set of terms and concepts that define how leads move through the system, how automation behaves, and how actions are triggered. Understanding these key terms is essential for administrators configuring workflows, automated events, routing logic, and reporting.
This article defines the most commonly used workflow-related terms so admins can design, troubleshoot, and optimize automation with confidence.
Key Functionality
Establish a shared vocabulary for SalesExec automation
Clarify how workflows, criteria, and actions interact
Reduce configuration errors caused by misunderstanding system behavior
Support more advanced and predictable automation setups
Improve collaboration between admins, managers, and support teams
Key Terms
Workflow: Consider this the largest group of your leads. Workflows hold a collection of numerous statuses which are similar in nature. For example, a Workflow of Attempting Contact which groups a number of Attempting Contact statuses.
Status: A status is a sales milestone that is important to your organization. For example, you may have a status of Final Contact, or Appointment Set.
System Status: Special way to tag your sales milestones to mean certain things. This is another way to group your statuses together and these system statuses can be used when building Distribution Strategies.
Pipeline % to Sale: Used when working with Products. When a lead enters a certain Status, you can denote the likely percentage outcome of a sale.
Max Allowed Assignment Time: If Enable Pull From Other Agents is enabled via your System Settings, you can set your max assignment time to denote how long a lead can stay in this status before it can be pulled by another agent. This is an Advanced Distribution option.
Category: Groups together and improves navigation of all Actions your sales team will need when working a lead. You may decide to have a Category of Contact Attempt with the actions No Answer, Left Message, Left Voicemail.
Action: A disposition that controls and automates what happens to a lead. This could be moving a lead between workflows and statuses, scheduling a callback, denoting contact made or marking a lead DNC.
Automated Event:
An automated event is a type of workflow that triggers actions based on specific conditions. Automated events can be based on:
New Leads: Triggered when a lead is created
Action-Based: Triggered when certain actions occur on a lead
Trigger: A trigger defines when SalesExec evaluates a workflow or automated event. Triggers determine when automation should run, such as on lead creation or after a specific action.
Criteria:
Criteria are the conditions a lead must meet for a workflow or automated event to execute. Criteria can be based on:
Lead fields
System fields
Campaign or source data
Number or type of actions taken
If the criteria do not match, no actions are performed.
Best Practices
Review key terms before creating complex workflows or automation.
Use consistent terminology across documentation and internal training.
Clearly document workflow logic using these terms for future reference.
Avoid overlapping workflows that use similar criteria without clear intent.
Train new admins on these concepts before granting configuration access.
Troubleshooting
If automation does not trigger, confirm the trigger and criteria definitions.
If actions run unexpectedly, review overlapping workflows and evaluation timing.
If leads behave inconsistently, check assignment and routing definitions.
Use workflow terminology consistently when reviewing logs or support cases.