Automations
Automations
Automations let you build email sequences that trigger on their own - when a contact's status changes, when they haven't been contacted in a while, or on demand. You define the rules once, and ORCA handles the follow-through.
The system has two parts that work together: Email Templates (the actual emails) and Sequences (the rules for when to send them).
Email Templates
Templates are the building blocks. Each one is a reusable email - a subject line and an HTML body - that sequences can reference.
Go to Automations > Email Templates and click New template to create one.
A few things worth knowing:
- Templates support basic HTML. Keep it simple - plain, well-structured emails typically perform better than heavily styled ones.
- You can use the same template across multiple sequences.
- Editing a template updates it everywhere it's used, so be careful if a sequence is already active.
Personalising emails with merge tags
Templates support merge tags - placeholders that ORCA replaces with real contact data before an email is queued. Use them in the subject line or body.
| Tag | What it inserts |
|---|---|
{{contact.first_name}} | Contact's first name |
{{contact.last_name}} | Contact's last name |
{{contact.full_name}} | Full name |
{{contact.email}} | Email address |
{{contact.company}} | Parent company name |
{{contact.status}} | Lead status from the trigger picklist |
{{contact.last_note}} | Most recent communication note |
{{contact.last_contacted}} | Date of last communication |
{{sender.name}} | Name of the user who owns the automation |
{{sender.email}} | Sender's email address |
AI-drafted emails
Templates have an optional AI prompt field. If you fill it in, ORCA uses the prompt along with the contact's details to generate a personalised email body for each send - rather than sending the same text to everyone. The AI-drafted copy lands in the Review Queue like any other send, so you still get to approve it before anything goes out.
If the AI call fails for any reason, ORCA falls back to the raw template body automatically.
Sending a test email
Once a template has been saved, a Send test email button appears alongside the Save button on the edit form. Click it to open a small panel pre-filled with your email address. Hit Send and a copy of the template lands in your inbox straight away - it does not go through the Review Queue, and no sequence logic is involved.
Use this to check formatting, spot broken HTML, and confirm merge tags are rendering correctly before attaching the template to a live sequence. The test send uses placeholder values for merge tags if no specific contact is provided.
Email Signature
Accounts can set an account-wide email signature in Settings > General > Automation email signature. Whatever you put there is automatically appended to the bottom of every outgoing automation email - you don't need to add it to individual templates.
The signature field supports rich text: name, title, company name, and a hosted logo image are the typical contents. Leave it blank to send emails without one.
Unsubscribe handling
Every automated email includes an unsubscribe link added automatically by ORCA - you don't need to include it in your template. When a contact clicks it, they're marked as unsubscribed and excluded from all future automation sends.
Send pacing and daily cap
ORCA paces outbound sends at one per minute and caps at 200 emails per account per day. This is a deliverability safeguard - sending at volume too quickly is a reliable way to land in spam folders. If you're building large sequences, factor this in when thinking about timing.
The Review Queue
Before any email goes out, it lands in the Review Queue on the main Automations screen. Nothing is sent without a human seeing it first.
From the queue you can approve an individual send, skip it (removes it from the queue without sending), or bulk-approve a batch. Once approved, the email is handed off to the queue and sent.
This is intentional. Automated outreach that bypasses human review is how reputations get dented.
History
The History tab gives you a log of every email the system has sent - who it went to, which sequence triggered it, and the status. Useful for auditing and for diagnosing why something did or didn't go out.