Set up alerts in the pipe

Improve time management by defining alerts to optimize SLAs.

Grazi Sabatini avatar
Written by Grazi Sabatini
Updated over a week ago

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

If a card exceeds its due date, you can alert your team that it’s taking too long to complete.

There are 3 different types of alerts in Pipefy:

Use alerts to control SLAs and trigger automation actions.

In this article, find some FAQs and use cases to help get you started.

Overdue alert

What is it used for?

Notify assignees when a card exceeds its due date.

What does it look like?

It appears at the top of the card when it's open and at the bottom of it when it's closed.

If it's yellow, it means the due date is approaching. If it is red, the due date has been exceeded. But, if the alert is gray, there is still time before the due date.

  • Open card:

  • Closed card:

How to set up an overdue alert

If the start form has a due date field, you can define it there.

If you already have a card without a due date, you can open the card and click on the calendar icon to define a due date. Once you click on an option in the calendar, it's autosaved. It's also possible to leave the due date field blank and populate it later.

Late alert

What is it used for?

A late alert defines a maximum time (SLA) for a card to stay in a phase. Use it to limit how long a task will take in a specific stage of your process.

For example:

  • In a purchase process, assignees have 5 days to approve a request.

  • In a sales pipeline, the SDR has 1 hour to return a customer after their first contact.

What does it look like?

When a card is late, you will find a yellow clock icon at the top of it.

When a phase has a late alert defined, you'll find another yellow clock icon next to the phase name, showing how many late cards are.

How to set up a late alert

Move the cursor over the phase's name. Click on the (1) gear icon and go to (2) advanced options.

Scroll down to find the late alert option. Set SLA based on minutes, hours, or days.

Expired alert

What is it used for?

An expired alert defines the maximum period of time a card can stay in a pipe until being moved to the final phase. Use it to limit how long a task should take to pass through your entire process.

For example:

  • A request can't take more than 30 days to run through a purchase process.

  • Leads remain up to 90 days in a sales pipeline before "getting cold" and are considered a lost opportunity.

What does it look like?

It appears as a red clock alert at the top of the card and next to the phase's name, indicating how many expired cards there are.

How to set up an overdue alert

Click on the gear icon in your pipe's header. Go to your pipe’s settings, and look for the expired alert option.

Set the SLA based on minutes, hours, or days. You can set alerts for due dates that only take weekdays into account. This way, the days counted automatically exclude weekends and make it easier to follow the deadline for each card.

You can set this configuration on alerts of all types: due, overdue, and expired. To allow only weekdays to be counted for alerts, click the on/off button.

FAQ

What happens when I modify the SLA after a card becomes late or expired?

Once a card becomes late or expired, changing the phase or the pipe settings won't remove the alert.

The new settings will only be applied for new cards or when a card moves to a phase with an SLA for the first time.

What do the tiny clock icons mean?

They represent timers. The first red clock shows when a card was created; the second one shows how long a card has been in a phase, and the third one represents when the card was last updated.

To show/hide timers, go to company settings, and mark/unmark the check button.

Use cases

Here are some examples of how you can use alerts in different departments:

Customer Service

By customizing alerts in your Customer Support or Customer Onboarding pipes, the team can easily track their deadlines and never leave a client waiting for an answer.

Create alerts to send follow-up emails on time and customize expired alerts that apply to the whole pipe to keep a pattern for your tickets' resolutions.

Human Resources

Customize pipe alerts to keep track of a candidate's progress, so you’re not leaving them waiting for a response. Ensure they always receive feedback in the promised time.

You can also set due dates or late alerts to track a new employee's journey in your company and easily manage their participation in presentation meetings or handoffs.

Finance

Ensure your team doesn't deal with late taxes or financial penalties by creating late alerts and allowing your team to identify the nearest payment deadlines.

Pipefy's expired alerts also ensure the Accounts Payable or Purchase Process teams stay on track with their SLAs (Service Level Agreement) and send the documents to suppliers, customers, or third parties on time.

Marketing

Keep track of your team's deliverables by creating SLA (Service Level Agreement) alerts, such as late alerts and expired alerts. This way, requesters can receive answers before they’re due.

Also, you can set a pattern deadline for the whole Marketing Requests pipe through expired alerts to let the Marketing team know when a request surpasses an estimated time.

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