You are here:
Create and Activate a Cadence with Cadence Builder Classic
Establish a repeatable process for your sales reps to work their prospects using a scheduled sequence of outreach activities with Sales Engagement cadences.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience |
| Available with Sales Engagement, which is included with Sales in Performance, Einstein 1, and Unlimited Editions, and available for an extra cost in Professional and Enterprise Editions. Sales Engagement is also available for an extra cost in Service and Lightning Platform. |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To create cadences: | Sales Engagement Cadence Creator OR Sales Engagement Cadence Creator Included |
- In the Sales Engagement app, choose Cadences from the Navigation menu.
- From the Actions menu, choose New.
- Click Cadence Builder Classic.
-
Enter a unique name and a description for the cadence. Click
Save.
Cadence Builder opens.
- To add a step, click the + icon.
-
On the Add Element card, choose the category of step to add.
- To add a sales step, such as a phone call, email, or custom step, click Action.
- To add a call result branch step after a call step, click Rule.
- To add an email engagement branch step after an email step, click Listener.
-
For an action step, choose the type of sales outreach to add.
- Call—Name the call step. Choose a call script if you want sales reps to use a script during their conversation. The call script appears automatically when a sales rep initiates the call from their Work Queue. Create your call scripts before using them in a cadence.
- Email—Choose whether to send the email automatically or manually. Automatic emails
don’t require any action by the sales rep. For each email step, choose whether to thread the
email with previous emails from the cadence. Next, name the email step. Note When a cadence step specifies a threaded email, a Salesforce email address is added in the BCC field, except when emails are sent using Send Through Salesforce.
Sales reps can see the BCC address in their email application’s Sent Items folder.
- Choose an email template if you want sales reps to use specific language in the email. The email template appears automatically when a sales rep initiates the email from their Work Queue. Create your email templates before using them in a cadence. To perform the step, sales reps must have access to the email template. Email templates used in cadences must have a blank Related Entity Type value and can only use merge fields for Sender, Recipient, or Organization.
- When reps send manual emails to leads and contacts, they can schedule the emails so that they arrive at an optimal time.
- Use the Start This Step field on action steps to separate automated email steps by at least 24 hours.
- LinkedIn Step—Choose either an InMail step or a Connection Request step. For an InMail step, you can choose an email template to use for the InMail. The template appears when the sales rep begins the step. To perform the step, sales reps must have access to the email template.
- Custom Step—Name the step. A custom step can be anything you want your sales reps do on a schedule. For example, send a text message, LinkedIn InMail, or Facebook message, plan a meeting, or send a brochure.
Sales reps see the name that you enter for each sales step in their Work Queue.
For a call results branch step, click Call Result. When sales reps perform the preceding call step, the Call Result field stores the result automatically. Then choose the Call Result value to look for. When you create a branch step, a Yes and a No path appear. The cadence follows the Yes path when the call outcome matches the value you chose. Otherwise the cadence follows the No path.
For an email engagement branch step, click Email Open or Email Link Click. Specify how long to wait for the prospect to engage, and whether to advance the cadence when the engagement occurs or only after the time expires. When you create a branch step, a Yes and a No path appear. The cadence follows the Yes path when prospect engages in the way you listen for. Otherwise the cadence follows the No path. You can't add consecutive email engagement branch steps between an automated email step and another automated email step on a no branch.
A branch step can’t be the last step.
-
To indicate how much time you want to pass between each step, use the Start This Step field
on each action step.
In Summer '23, when editing cadences, the Cadence Builder prompts you to replace wait steps with the Start This Step field in the next step. You can’t save changes to cadences containing wait steps. In Winter '24, remaining wait steps will be automatically converted to hours in the Start This Step field on the action steps that follow each wait step. If you prefer, you can edit the Start This Step field to use days.
- When you finish adding the details for a step, click Save.
-
Add more steps as needed for your sales outreach plan.
The maximum number of steps is 100.
-
To send prospects to another cadence when they finish this one, click the
End step. Turn on Exit to linked cadence, and
then choose an active cadence. To see a preview of the linked cadence, click the
icon.
For example, use linking to put prospects through one cadence when they’re fresh, and a different cadence if they don’t convert. If a target has a related opportunity, it stays with them in the linked cadence. - To remove prospects automatically from the cadence based on the results of calls or emails, click Cadence Rules. Then enable the exit criteria that make sense for your business.
-
When you’re finished adding steps and are ready to start assigning prospects to the
cadence, click Activate.
If you leave Cadence Builder without activating, you can continue editing later by clicking Modify Steps on the cadence detail page.
- Add a Flow Automation to a Cadence Builder Classic Step
You can execute a flow each time a rep completes a cadence step by adding a flow to the cadence step in Cadence Builder Classic. For example, you can update a contact owner, lead path, or opportunity stage. - Use a Screen Flow as a Cadence Builder Classic Step
In Cadence Builder Classic, you can specify a screen flow as a cadence step. Use screen flow steps to let reps create a case, event, or task or to perform another action. The screen flow runs when the sales rep initiates the step for a target from their Work Queue or the Sales Engagement component on target records. Use the Cadence Step Flow process type to create screen flows for cadence steps, or use the included flow templates.
