Contact automations overview
Contact automations are automated actions that happen when someone books a meeting with you. Instead of manually tagging contacts, adding them to lists, or filling in details after each booking, you can set up a contact automation to do these tasks automatically.
Why contact automations matter
New bookings create repetitive work: tagging contacts, sorting them, filling in details. Usually this gets done by hand—or forgotten.
Contact automations fix that:
- Contacts organize automatically. Bookings trigger tags and list assignments instantly, without exceptions.
- Booking form answers save to contact records, not buried in confirmation emails.
- Your contact data stays reliable. Consistent fields let you trust them for filtering and follow-up.
- It's set-and-forget. Configure once per event type, then focus on the meeting.
What can contact automations do?
With contact automations, you can:
- Apply fields: Automatically add tags or information to contacts when they book
- Add to lists: Put new contacts on specific lists based on which meeting they booked
- Map booking form data: Automatically fill in contact details from answers they provide in your booking form
- Create new opportunities (limited availability): Automatically turn each booking into a tracked opportunity so your pipeline fills itself
You can use multiple automations together. For example, when someone books a Sales Demo, you could apply a tag, add them to a list, map their booking form responses, and create a new opportunity all at the same time.
Choose the right automation for your needs
Automations help you act on bookings automatically. Each automation does something different, so choose based on what you want to happen when someone books.
Add to lists: For grouping contacts to act on
Use Add to list when you want to gather a set of contacts together so you can do something with them as a group—send a campaign, review them in bulk, or work a pipeline.
What it does:
- Adds the contact to a static list you choose (or a new one you create on the spot)
- Lists are about membership and grouping, not describing an individual attribute
- A contact can belong to multiple lists at once and can be added or removed manually in addition to what automations apply
Use this when: You'll open the list itself and work through everyone in it—anything built around outreach, review, or bulk action.
Example: Everyone who books your "Free Consultation" event type gets added to a "Free Consult Leads" list. Once a week, you open that list and send a personal follow-up to everyone in it.
Apply fields: For describing a contact
Use Apply field when you want to record a specific, structured piece of information about the contact—something you'll want to see, filter by, or report on later.
What it does:
- Sets a value on a custom field (Text, Number, or Tags) on the contact record itself
- Supports multiple field-value pairs in a single automation, so one booking can update several fields at once (for example, Source = "Referral" and Budget = "$5K+")
- Text and Number fields overwrite the previous value; Tags fields append, so a contact can accumulate multiple tags over time
- Works best for classification and light personalization: relationship stage, lead source, budget tier, plan interest
Use this when: You want to describe or segment a contact wherever they appear—in the contact table, in future filters, or in reports.
Example: A 15-minute "Discovery Call" event type sets the Relationship field to "Lead." A 30-minute "Networking Chat" event type sets the same field to "Network." Now every contact's record reflects, at a glance, why they're in your CRM—without you touching a single record by hand.
Map booking form data: For capturing details from booking answers
Use the Apply fields contact automation to automatically map answers from your booking form to custom fields in your contacts. Answers people type in populate the corresponding custom field on their contact record.
What it does:
- Captures answers people provide in your booking form
- Automatically fills those answers into custom fields on their contact record
- Saves the information without manual entry, so each contact's record is complete
Use this when: You're collecting specific information in your booking form that you want stored on each contact's record for reference, filtering, or reporting.
Example:
Your booking form asks "What's your timeline?" The answer automatically fills a custom Timeline field on their contact record. Now you can see timeline information at a glance for every contact without copying data by hand.
Create a new opportunity: For tracking potential deals through your pipeline
Use Create a new opportunity when you want to turn every booking into a trackable deal so your pipeline stays current and nothing falls through the cracks.
What it does:
- Automatically creates a new opportunity in your pipeline every time someone books this event type
- Links the opportunity to the contact automatically
- Places the opportunity in a starting stage you choose, so it enters your pipeline in the right spot
Use this when: You want every booking on a specific event type to flow directly into your opportunities pipeline without manual entry.
Example: Everyone who books your Strategy Session event type automatically becomes a new opportunity on your board in the Exploring stage. As you work with them, you move them through Proposal and In Progress. Once they sign, you move them to Complete. Your entire pipeline is managed in one place, updated automatically with every booking.
Using them together
Contact automations are complementary, not competing:
- Apply field answers "What do I know about this contact?" It lives on the contact record and shapes how they're filtered, sorted, and reported on wherever they show up.
- Add to list answers "Which group does this contact belong to, so I can act on that group?" It's about assembling a working set of people.
A common pattern: Use Apply field to tag a contact's relationship stage or source on booking, and use Add to list on the same booking to drop them into the list you'll actually work from that week. One automation describes the contact; the other puts them where you'll take action.
Where to find contact automations
Look for the automation settings in the More options section of your event type editor. You'll see a section called Contact automations that shows available automations for that event.