Sequences Overview
What a sequence is, when to use one, and how its steps, waits, and exit criteria fit together.
A sequence is a short series of emails Parable sends to one person, on a schedule you set, without anyone having to remember to send them. You write the emails once; each person who enters the sequence walks through them from their own starting point.
Sequences live under Campaigns → Sequences.
Today the editor saves a sequence's name, description, delivery settings, sender, and exit criteria, and shows its steps read-only. Writing a step, publishing, enabling a sequence, and enrolling anyone arrive with the campaigns engine. What a sequence is made of, described below, does not change.
When to Use One
Sequences are for follow-up that should happen every time, to everyone, at the same moment in their journey — and that no one has time to send by hand.
Thank a first-time giver, then follow up a week later with where their gift went
A warm hello after a first check-in, then an invitation to a next step
A gentle check-in when a regular giver goes past their normal rhythm
They are a poor fit for anything that has to be written for one specific person, for anything time-critical (a sequence is built out of a start delay and waits between steps, so it is measured in hours and days rather than minutes), and for one-off announcements to your whole list.
The Anatomy of a Sequence
A sequence reads top to bottom as a single thread.
| Piece | What it is |
|---|---|
| Start delay | How long after someone is enrolled the first email goes out. "Immediately", or a number of hours, days, or business days. |
| Step | One email: a subject line and a body. Steps are numbered in the order they send. |
| Wait | The gap between one step and the next. Same units as the start delay, and always at least 1. |
| Exit criteria | The conditions that take a person out early, before the remaining steps send. |
Around those sit the settings the sequence carries as a whole: the sending window and its timezone, Business days only, and the sender name and reply-to address.
A sequence has one linear path. There are no branches and no conditional steps — a person either continues to the next step or exits. If you need different messages for different people, build a separate sequence for each.
How People Enter
Every sequence has a trigger, fixed when the sequence is created. New sequence creates a manual sequence, which enrolls only the people you pick. Existing sequences with automatic triggers enroll people as something happens in your Planning Center data — a first gift, a second gift, giving that lapses, a follow-up opened, a person entering a segment, or a recorded activity.
Each sequence also has a re-entry rule: a person can either enter once, ever, or enter again after finishing. See Enrolling people.
How People Leave
A person leaves a sequence when they run out of steps (Completed), or early because an exit criterion matched (Exited). Unsubscribing always exits, and it also stops every other sequence for that address. See Delivery and exit.
Sequences, Giving Stages, and Automation Recipes
These three overlap, and it is worth knowing which to reach for.
- Giving stages are the labels Parable puts on a giver's behaviour — New Donor, Second Gift, At-Risk, Lapsed, and the rest. They are the vocabulary, not the sending.
- Automation recipes build follow-up out of Planning Center Lists and Automations, using giving stages synced onto the Parable: Giving tab. The email is sent by Planning Center.
- Sequences keep the writing, the schedule, the recipient list, and the results inside Parable, and Parable sends the email.
Use a recipe when your team already works out of Planning Center Lists and wants the follow-up to live there. Use a sequence when you want to write, schedule, and measure the follow-up in one place, and see per-person delivery and clicks without leaving Parable.
The giving triggers — First gift, Second gift, Giving lapses — line up with the same donor behaviour the giving stages describe, so a recipe you already run in Planning Center translates directly into a sequence.