Automation settings
Your firm's Automation settings decide how Esqase behaves when it runs a workflow for you: who automatic emails come from, when it may send them, which kinds of step need a person's approval, how often clients are reminded, whether leads from your public pages run on their own, and a single switch that stops everything at once.
These settings apply to every workflow in your firm. What each individual workflow and step does is set in the builder. See Workflows and the builder and How automation runs your workflows.
Before you begin
- Open the page from the sidebar: Settings, then Firm, then Automation. It is also on the settings home as the Automation card, described as Choose how Esqase sends automatic emails, when it may send, and what needs approval.
- Your role needs the Automation settings permission. Firm owners and administrators have it by default; attorneys and staff do not, so they will not see the card or the page. See Roles and permissions.
- Until someone saves this page for the first time, a member who can only view it sees Nobody has set up automation for your firm yet. An owner or an administrator can set it up from this page.
- The first five sections are one form with a single Save changes button at the bottom. The Pause everything switch at the end saves as soon as you confirm it.
📷 Screenshot: The Automation settings page inside the firm settings shell, showing the six sections and the Save changes button.
Who automatic emails come from
Esqase sends automatic emails on your firm's behalf. Choose where replies should land.
- Clients see is a read-only line showing exactly what a client will see in their inbox: your firm's name, then via Esqase, then the address Esqase sends from,
noreply@client.esqase.com. You cannot change it, and emails your team sends by hand still come from your own mailbox as usual. - Replies go to decides where a reply lands:
- Your firm email address: Replies arrive in the mailbox on your firm profile. When your firm profile has an email address, the option names it.
- The member who started the workflow: Replies arrive in the mailbox of whoever created the record or added the workflow.
- A different address: Replies arrive in the mailbox you name below. Choosing this reveals a Reply address field. Type the address you want.
Tip: Set your firm email address on the firm profile first, so clients who reply to an automatic email reach someone. See Your firm profile and details.
When Esqase may send
Automatic emails and reminders wait until the next allowed time. Tasks, documents and invoices are created straight away.
- From and To set the hours when Esqase may send. Both pickers offer Any time, which clears the window. From notes Leave both times empty to send at any hour, and anything that comes due after the To time goes out the next morning.
- Time zone is the clock those times are read in. It starts at your firm's time zone.
- Skip weekends: Anything due on a Saturday or Sunday waits for Monday morning.
Note: Set both times or neither. If you set only one, the page will ask you to complete the pair before it saves.
Important: The window only holds back things that reach a client: emails, form requests, meeting invites, and reminders. Tasks, documents, invoices, and status changes are created as soon as their step comes due, whatever the clock says.
What needs approval
A step set to run on its own still waits for a member when its type needs approval.
There is one picker per step type, each set to No approval or Needs approval. Set a type to Needs approval and every automatic step of that type stops and waits for someone to review it before it does anything, no matter what the workflow says. Invoice and Convert to matter start out needing approval.
Use it as a safety net for the steps you never want going out unseen, for example emails to clients or draft invoices.
Note: Convert to matter always waits for a member, whatever this row says. Converting a lead is never done unattended.
Reminder defaults
New reminder settings start here. Any step can use its own.
- Remind every and Reminder unit: how long to wait between reminders, as a number plus Minutes, Hours, or Days.
- Total reminders: how many reminders a step sends.
- Reminder cap: No step sends more reminders than this.
- Stop reminding after: Days to keep reminding a client before giving up.
Important: Remind every, Reminder unit, and Total reminders are the starting point for the next Form or Event step somebody adds in the builder: the step opens with these values already filled in, and what is saved on the step is what that step uses from then on. Changing them here does not change steps that are already built. Reminder cap and Stop reminding after are firm limits and always win: a step set to remind an unlimited number of times stops at the cap, and reminding stops altogether once the stop-after number of days has passed. See Workflow step types.
Leads from public pages and the API
Leads that arrive from a booking page, a public form, the client portal or the API keep their workflow, and this decides whether it runs on its own.
One switch, Run automatic steps on these leads: When this is off, their steps wait for a member to start them.
Leave it off while you are still testing a workflow, so a stranger filling in your public form never triggers an email nobody has read. Turn it on once you trust the workflow end to end. Either way the steps are attached, and a member can release them from the record with Start automation.
Note: This switch does not affect records your team creates in the dashboard, or matters created through the new-matter wizard. Their automatic steps start as soon as the record exists.
Pause everything
The last section is the kill switch: Pause all automation for this firm. While it is off, the line under it reads Turn this on to stop every automatic step across your workflows at once. While it is on, it reads Automation is paused. Nothing automatic runs until you turn it back on.
- Flip the switch. Esqase asks you to confirm in Pause all automation?
- Confirm with Pause automation. You will see Automation is paused for your firm.
- To start again, flip the switch back and confirm Turn automation back on?, which reads Steps that were waiting while automation was paused start running again., with Turn automation on.
While automation is paused, every record shows Automation paused for the firm in its workflow section, and the buttons that ask Esqase to act (Run now, Review, Try again, Run it anyway) are greyed out with Automation is paused for your firm on them. Your team can still work every step by hand.
Note: Turning automation back on picks the records up where they left off. Esqase asks every workflow that was live when you paused to carry on, so a step that came due during the pause runs shortly afterwards without anyone opening the record. A record a member paused on its own is left alone: someone has to press Resume automation there.
📷 Screenshot: The Pause everything section with the destructive switch, next to the "Pause all automation?" confirmation dialog.
Common questions
Who can change these settings? Firm owners and administrators. Attorneys and staff have no access by default, so the Automation card and page are hidden from them. A role can be given the Automation settings permission in Roles and permissions.
Will changing these settings affect workflows that are already running? Yes. Unlike a workflow's own steps, which are copied onto each record, these settings are read every time Esqase runs something. A tighter sending window or a new approval requirement applies to the next step of every record.
Can I stop just one client's workflow? Yes, and you should prefer that to the firm-wide pause. Open the lead or matter and use Pause automation in its workflow section. See How automation runs your workflows.
Why did an automatic email arrive outside the hours I set? Check the Time zone in the sending window. The hours are read in that zone, not in the reader's.