How to Create Automated Workflows in WordPress with Uncanny Automator

Automating repetitive, manual processes is one of the best ways to enhance efficiency. According to SmallBizGenius, 89% of businesses using automation report time savings, 86% have increased productivity, and 73% improve customer experience.

This comprehensive guide will show you how to leverage these benefits in WordPress using Uncanny Automator.

Why You Need Workflow Automation in WordPress

Manually performing repetitive administrative, marketing, and customer service tasks is tedious and time consuming. Automating workflows eliminates these pain points.

Key Advantages

Here are some major reasons businesses automate WordPress workflows:

• Save Time – Automate daily manual processes like posting on social media, adding email subscribers, creating user accounts, importing data, and more. This lets you focus on high value tasks.
• Reduce Human Error – Standardize workflows to limit mistakes from manual work. Ensures consistency in quality and branding.
• Scale Growth – Easily manage higher volumes without adding more staff. Workflows handle repetitive tasks automatically as you grow.
• Improve CX – Instant actions like order confirmations and technical assistance save customers time and frustration.
• Get Performance Insights – Review detailed analytics on the efficiency of automated workflows versus manual methods. Identify optimization opportunities.

For established sites, over 50 hours per month can be saved leveraging automation. One study by Danske Bank found for every 70 workflows automated, one full-time employee job could be eliminated.

Use Cases

• New user onboarding sequences
• Social media post scheduling
• Syncing subscription data across apps
• Updating related content automatically
• Following up on abandoned shopping carts
• Importing products catalogs
• Managing user permissions
• Congratulatory messages or incentive offers
• Recurring data backups or reports

Next, let‘s compare solutions for creating workflows in WordPress.

Comparing WordPress Automation Tools

While native WordPress doesn‘t support workflow automation out-of-the-box, there are some excellent plugins available.

Here is an overview comparing major solutions:

Key Takeaway – For most users, Uncanny Automator provides the best blend of native WordPress integration, easy visual builder, customization capabilities, usage limits, and support compared to alternatives.

Now let‘s see how to use it to automate workflows.

How to Set Up WordPress Workflow Automation

I‘ll walk through a step-by-step guide on using Uncanny Automator Pro to create an automated recipe that registers new user accounts when contact forms are submitted.

Installing and Activating Uncanny Automator

First, purchase and install the Uncanny Automator Pro plugin on your WordPress site.

On the plugins page, click "Activate" to enable Automator. This will also install the free Automator Core plugin.

After activating, navigate to Automator > Settings and enter your license key:

Then click "Activate License". You‘re now ready to start creating recipes.

Creating a New Automation Recipe

Recipes are what Automator calls workflows. Our recipe will register a user when a form is submitted.

Go to Automator > Add New and select the "Everyone" recipe type for anonymous visitors, then Confirm.

Name your recipe something descriptive like "Register User from Contact Form".

Configuring Triggers

Click "Add new trigger" – this is the event that kicks off our automated workflow.

Under the WPForms integration, choose the trigger "A form is submitted":

Select which contact form will activate the registration recipe.

Triggers determine what actions happen next…

Adding Actions to the Workflow

In the Actions section, click "Add new action" and choose the WordPress integration.

Select action "Set user data" then toggle to apply action on "New user".

Map form fields to user fields using the variable selector:

This automatically transfers submitted details to the user profile during account creation.

Publishing and Tracking Automations

Click Publish to activate your live automation recipe.

New user accounts matching form submissions will now be programmatically created!

View execution logs under Automator > Logs and filter analytics by recipe, user, date range, etc.

For more examples see our complete Uncanny Automator Workflows guide.

Pro Tip: Building Multi-Step Workflows

Stack additional actions to create multi-step sequences all triggered initially by a single event.

For example, create user then automatically:

• Add visitor company details toCRM
• Enroll signed up user in email list
• Provide instant coupon code

Complex business logic and personalized experiences can be designed without IT resources.

Troubleshooting Automations

Here are some common issues seen when establishing automated workflows and how to address them:

Recipes not triggering – Check publish status, relevant content exists like assigned posts or pages, confirm expected users able to activate based on visitor identity settings

Actions not applying – Validate action user identity and scope settings are aligned to trigger visitor type

Errors logged – Enable debugging in Automator settings to see failed execution reason and troubleshoot

Too many emails – By default all email content is ON by plugins. Review notification settings after installing to limit automated messages.

Limits exceeded – If site traffic spikes, hosted account resource limits may be reached causing failures. Upgrade hosting plan if this persists.

Summarizing the Benefits

Implementing intelligent workflows is transformational for managing WordPress sites and users at scale while enhancing customer experiences.

Uncanny Automator makes this accessible to businesses without advanced technical resources. Building automated workflows is fast and intuitive with a visual builder instead of complex coding.

Over 75% of routine tasks can potentially be automated to boost productivity and growth. The time and money savings often provide under 6 month ROI when displacing manual efforts.

Let us know if you have any other questions on getting started with process automation in WordPress!