Automations and reminders
The things nobody should have to remember: reminders, status messages, thank-yous, review asks, payment nudges and more. Each automation reads like a sentence, has its own switch, and keeps a record of what it sent.
The intro, in words
The things nobody should have to remember
Reminders, status texts, review asks, payment nudges and thank-yous. At Harlow and Finch, Kim used to send them by hand, when she remembered.
This is automations and reminders in CrewBarn. Let's follow one job from booked to paid, and watch each message go out on its own.
Set up once: Each status, its own message
First, Dana sets it up once. She opens Job statuses, picks Scheduled, and goes to Tell the customer.
She turns on Email the customer, picks the template, and reads the preview. Write both with AI can draft the email and the text for her.
A status can also attach a PDF to the job. And from now on, every job that moves into Scheduled sends that email, without anyone pressing anything.
Set up once: Every reminder on one timeline
Then Reminders. It draws a job day: customers on the top row, the crew on the bottom, each pin at the time it goes out.
Dana keeps a reminder text one day before, the on-the-way text when the tech heads out, and a running-late note. Click a pin to change who gets it, when, and what it says.
One job: Booked, and confirmed
Tuesday morning, Kim books Mrs. Rivera's water heater for Thursday at ten fifteen, with Sam. The job moves to Scheduled.
The moment it does, Mrs. Rivera gets the confirmation email. Kim didn't write it, and didn't press send.
One job: Reminded, then on the way
Wednesday at ten fifteen, one day before, the reminder text goes out.
Thursday, Sam finishes his first job and taps Start travel. The job turns On the way, and Mrs. Rivera gets a text: Sam is on the way, about fourteen minutes out.
One job: Done, then a review ask
Sam installs the new tank, Mrs. Rivera signs, and he taps Check out. The job is Complete.
Dana turned on Ask for a review after a job. So an hour later, at five past one, Mrs. Rivera gets a text asking for a review.
One job: A nudge, then a thank-you
Thursday afternoon, Dana sends the invoice. Invoice follow-up waits a day, so on Friday Mrs. Rivera gets a friendly nudge by text.
Over the weekend she pays from the link. The invoice is Paid, and two things happen at once.
She gets a thank-you email. And the office gets an email too: the Rivera invoice is paid. Nobody had to check the bank.
Other ways it goes: One switch per job
Now say the Rivera job was a warranty callback, and Dana wants nothing automatic sent for it. On the job's header, she clicks Automations on.
She confirms, and it reads Automations off. No status messages, no reminders, no automation rules and no nudges for this job. Every other job carries on as normal.
Other ways it goes: Or pause it for everyone
And on Job statuses, Pause status messages stops the automatic status emails and texts for the whole company, keeping every saved response for when you resume.
One switch on Reminders does the same for every reminder. The pins stay saved, and start again when it's back on.
Build your own: Marketing, only with a yes
Next, Dana wants to bring back customers who've gone quiet. Bring customers back is marketing, so it only goes to customers who said yes to it.
She presses Start from an idea and picks Win back quiet customers. It fills in the whole sentence for her.
Build your own: Read it like a sentence
When should it happen? When a customer hasn't heard from us in a hundred and eighty days. How long after? Right away. How should it reach them? A text.
Who hears about it? The customer. Which words go out? The friendly default, and the preview shows the text exactly as it will go out.
Dana presses Turn it on. It says: It's on! CrewBarn will take it from here.
Build your own: Test it on yourself first
Dana opens it again. Try it on yourself sends one real text to her own phone, using a recent job for the details. She presses Send me a test, and her phone buzzes.
From then on, its History lists every message: Sent, Waiting, Skipped, or Didn't send, with the reason.
Build your own: Pause, without losing anything
Say Dana wants to hold it over the holidays. She presses Pause. Anything it had waiting is skipped, not sent late.
In January she presses Turn back on, and it picks up where it left off, with the same sentence and the same history.
What changed: What went out, and what didn't
So for the Rivera job, six messages went out between Tuesday and Monday, and nobody at Harlow and Finch typed one of them. Paid over the weekend, not after a phone call.
The Automations page counts what's turned on, what's waiting to send, and what didn't send. Ready to send checks texting, email, templates and GPS, and points to anything still missing.
The whole tree: Booked to paid, on its own
That's one job, start to finish: scheduled, reminded, on the way, complete, invoiced, and paid, each with its own message.
And every branch had an answer: one job kept quiet, everything paused at once, and a marketing automation built, tested and paused.
Automations & reminders: Remembered, every time
That's automations and reminders in CrewBarn.
CrewBarn is in beta, and free for life for trades that help test it.
Before the job
Appointment reminders go out before the visit, when a visit starts late, and when the tech is on the way. They're laid out on a timeline of the job day: customers on the top row, your crew on the bottom, each pin placed at the time it goes out. Click a pin to change who gets it, when and what it says. One company switch turns every reminder on or off, and only jobs with a time and a tech get them.
Job status messages
Each job status can send an email, a text, a document, or a note in the job's history when a job moves into it. Set them on Job statuses, and they go out as the crew's phones move the job along. Each job also has its own switch: off, and nothing automatic is sent for that job.
After the job and getting paid
Say thanks, ask for a Google review, nudge an unpaid invoice, or tell the office when money comes in. Automations for the crew's phones check techs in when they arrive and tell dispatch when someone's running late.
Marketing automations
Warranty and agreement reminders, a heads-up when a renewal is due, and a note to customers who've gone quiet. Only customers who said yes to marketing get these.
Build your own
Make your own automation by filling in the blanks of one sentence: when it happens, how long after, whether it's a text or an email, who it goes to, and what it says. Start from an idea and change any part. The preview shows the message as it will go out, with sample details filled in, and you can send it to yourself first. Pause stops it without losing anything.
Know what went out
The automations page sums up how many are on, how many messages are waiting, and how many didn't send, and says why. Ready to send checks the basics, like texting, email, templates and GPS, and points you to anything that needs setting up. Every send, skip and failure is listed.
The words
Every email, text and document CrewBarn sends lives in templates, laid out in the order a job happens: before the job, on the job, getting paid and after. Fill one in with a real job to read exactly what the customer would get. Add missing templates fills any gaps with tested versions, and CBI can write a new one from a sentence.
How it works
- Flip on the reminders and messages you want. Each saves the moment you switch it.
- Set status messages on each job status.
- Change timing and wording, or build your own from one sentence.
- Check Ready to send for anything that needs setting up.
- Read the history to see what went out, and what didn't and why.