# Automations Overview

> Learn how automations follow up contacts, including statuses and reminders.

Source: https://support.amazeful.com/campaigns/automations-overview/overview
Documentation index: https://support.amazeful.com/llms.txt

### Overview <a href="#overview" id="overview"></a>

A running automation will continuously monitor the contacts in a segment or an audience. Once a contact is added to a segment or an audience, the automation will automatically generate email and SMS invitations accordingly to the automation setup.

### Statuses <a href="#statuses" id="statuses"></a>

Automations can be in 1 of 4 states:

* Draft
* Running
* Paused
* Stopped

### Reminders

Automations allow for the scheduling of reminders. Reminders are only sent if a previous invitation was not actioned ( the inviation link was not open ). When an invitation is actioned, all future reminders are deactivated.

### Pausing automations

Pausing automations will suspend:

* The syncing of contacts between the automation and its connected audience.
* Outstanding invitations from being sent.
* New invitations from being created.

When resuming automation, all paused invitations will have their send date incremented by the time difference between pausing and resuming the automation before being re-activated.

### Stopping automations

Stopping automations will deactivate all invitations that have not been sent. All sent invitations will stay active. The automation can not be resumed once stopped.

Automations can only be stopped from the `paused` state.

### Comparison table

<table><thead><tr><th width="166">Type</th><th width="150">Edit</th><th width="150">Duplicate</th><th width="150">Pause/Resume</th><th width="150">Delete</th><th>Stop</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Campaign</td><td>No</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td><td>Yes (draft only)</td><td>Yes</td></tr><tr><td>Automation</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes (draft only)</td><td>Yes (paused only)</td></tr></tbody></table>

### Unique contacts <a href="#unique-contacts" id="unique-contacts"></a>

Automations will only ever send to a contact once. This includes changing audiences, or a contact re-entering an audience.

For example, if contact John belongs to 2 Audiences (1 & 2) and the automation monitors Audience 1, John is followed up for reviews. However, if the automation is edited to monitor Audience 2, contact John will be skipped as he was already followed up.