Automations That Actually Save Time: Five If-Then Rules Worth Setting Up

Automation has a novelty problem. People set up a dozen rules in the first week and are running two of them a month later. So we asked which rules survive. These five came up again and again.

1. When a due date is N days away, create a task and email the case's point of contact

The workhorse. Every case has a delivery or due date; most templates add tracked dates on top. A rule that fires a set number of days before — creating a task, sending an email, or both — converts a deadline from something you have to notice into something that notices you. Set the audience to the case's point of contact so the right person, not everyone, hears about it.

2. When status becomes Completed, set the result and close the open tasks

Closing a case by hand is a checklist: tick the tasks, fill the result, archive. A rule does it in one status change and never forgets the third step. Pair it with a "Set a field only if empty" so a result that was typed deliberately is not overwritten.

3. When a field is filled, show the section that depends on it

Not every automation sends something. Conditional visibility — show the "Guarantor" section only when "Has guarantor" is Yes — keeps forms short and stops people filling in sections that do not apply. It is the rule that makes a big template feel small.

4. When a table row is added, number it from a sequence

Invoice numbers, evidence item IDs, sample references: things that must be unique and in order. Sequences in Herarx are per template and never reuse a number, so two people adding rows at the same time cannot collide. The number is minted when the row is saved, not when the form opens.

5. When a date needs a decision, ask someone

The newest of the five. Some events do not have one right answer — a rent review, a contract renewal, a retention deadline. Rather than send an email nobody actions, the rule presents the options (raise, hold, extend, dispose) and records which was chosen, by whom and when. "Later" snoozes it; it comes back.

What to avoid

• Rules that email everyone. If every member gets every alert, every member learns to ignore them. Scope to a point of contact or a role.
• Rules that fight each other. Two rules setting the same field to different values on the same trigger produce whichever ran last. Keep one owner per field.
• Rules you cannot explain. If you cannot say what the rule does in one sentence, split it.

Free workspaces get three automations; that is enough for rules 1, 2 and 3, which is where most of the value is anyway.