Create 'Specific date' or 'Contact date property' contact-based workflows

Create Specific date or Contact date property contact-based workflows to center your workflow actions on a calendar date or contact date property. This allows you to schedule and execute workflow actions relative to a specific date.

Select workflow type

• In your HubSpot account, navigate to Automation > Workflows.
• In the upper right, click Create workflow > From scratch.
• In the left panel, select Contact-based as your workflow type. 
• In the right panel, under How do you want this workflow to start?, select Specific Date or Contact date property. Learn more about contact-based workflow types.
  • If you select Specific date, click the Date of event dropdown menu and select the date the workflow actions will revolve around.
  • If you select Contact date property, click the Contact date property dropdown menu and select the contact date property the workflow actions will revolve around.
• Click the pencil icon edit to give your workflow a name, then click Next. You'll then be brought to the workflow editor.

Set enrollment criteria

When a contact meets the enrollment criteria, they'll automatically be enrolled. If you only want to enroll contacts manually, leave the enrollment trigger box blank. Learn more about manual enrollment.

• In the workflow editor, click Set up triggers.
• In the left panel, select a filter type for your enrollment trigger. Set up the criteria, then click Save. 
   
  
  
• By default, contacts will only be enrolled in a workflow the first time they meet the enrollment triggers. To enable re-enrollment for filter-based triggers:
  
  • In the left sidebar, click the Re-enrollment tab.
  • Click to toggle the Allow re-enrollment switch on.
  • Select the triggers that you want to use for re-enrollment. Learn more about adding re-enrollment triggers to workflows.
• To enable re-enrollment for event-based filters:
  • In the left sidebar, navigate to the Should contacts be re-enrolled in this workflow? section.
  • Select Yes, re-enroll every time the trigger occurs.
• For Contact date property workflows, add [contact date property] is known as an enrollment trigger. Actions will only execute for contacts who have a value for the date property, so this enrollment criteria will ensure all contacts who enter the workflow can go through actions successfully.
• Click Save.
• Any actions in the workflow are relative to the selected date or contact date property value. To set date and time the next action will execute, click the Delay action.

Please note: the Do the next action on... delay cannot be deleted as it is used to schedule the first workflow action based on the selected date or date property.

• In the left panel, click the When will the next action execute? dropdown menu and select a date or if the action will execute before, on, or after the contact date property. Click the Time of day to execute dropdown menu and select a time.
• Click Save.

Set the workflow to recur annually (optional)

By default, date-centered workflows won't recur annually. However, you can set the workflow to re-enroll contacts based on the selected date or date property each year. For example, use this option to automatically enroll contacts in the workflow on their renewal date or birthday every year. 

Please note: the default contact property Date of birth is linked to the ads tool and has a single-line text field type that cannot be modified. To create a workflow centered around a contact's birthday, create a custom contact property (e.g., Birthdate) with a Date picker field type.

To set the workflow to recur annually:

• Click the Specify a date action.
• In the left panel, click to select the Recur annually checkbox.

• Click Save.
  
  

When setting a Contact date property workflow to recur annually, the workflow will use the day and month of the property value, ignoring the year. In other words, actions in annually recurring workflows will be scheduled relative to the day and month in the current year. 

For example, you create a workflow centered on a contact's Became a customer date property. If the first action is scheduled to happen 300 days after that date, an enrolled contact will be scheduled based on the day and month of their Became a customer date property. Even if the contact became a customer on 1/20/2020, enrolling them in the workflow in 2021 will schedule the first action 300 days after 1/20/2021. 

Specific date vs Contact date property workflows

Specific date

In Specific date workflows, all workflow actions are centered on a fixed calendar date. Similar to Blank workflows, contacts are enrolled in the workflow when they meet the enrollment triggers, or are manually enrolled into the workflow. 

However, contacts will remain in the workflow until the first action is scheduled to execute, relative to the fixed calendar date. Delays added anywhere else in the workflow are relative to the fixed calendar date, not to the previous action.

Unlike Contact date property workflows, all contacts in a Specific date workflow will execute workflow actions at the same date and time. Some examples of Specific date workflows are:

• Sending holiday emails to your contacts.
• Sending reminder emails to contacts who registered for an upcoming webinar.

Contact date property

In Contact date property workflows, all workflow actions are centered on a contact date property. Similar to Blank workflows, contacts are enrolled in the workflow when they meet the enrollment triggers, or are manually enrolled into the workflow. However, contacts will remain in the workflow until the first action is scheduled to execute, relative to their contact date property. Delays added anywhere else in the workflow are relative to the contact date property, not to the previous action.

Unlike Specific date workflows, actions in a Contact date property workflow will execute at different times for contacts, based on the date value in their contact date property. Some examples of Contact date property workflows are:

• Sending welcome emails based on a contact's account activation date.
• Sending emails with coupons or personalized offers to contacts on their birthday.
• Automating a series of actions (e.g., creating tasks for the contact owner) based on a contact's trial expiration date.