Automation
The Automation page gives you an overview of all running follow-up automations and lets you control them manually.
Overview
At the top of the page, you'll see three stat cards:
- Active Deals — Number of deals with a running follow-up sequence
- Pending Jobs — Number of scheduled, not yet executed follow-up jobs
- Next Job — When the next follow-up is due (with deal name). Click the card to open the details of the affected deal
Data is automatically refreshed in the background every 30 seconds.
Filter: Mine / All Deals
Using the Mine / All toggle in the header, you can choose which deals are displayed:
- Mine (default) — Shows only your own deals, i.e. deals assigned to your user
- All — Shows all deals across the entire team/tenant
Your selection is saved and automatically restored on your next visit.
Use the "Mine" filter to focus on your own deals without being distracted by other team members' deals.
Deal Table
The table shows all deals with active automation, sorted by the next follow-up date (earliest first):
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Deal | Title of the Pipedrive deal |
| Person | Linked contact person |
| User | Assigned user (only visible in "All" mode) |
| Track | Automation track: Customer or Supplier with domain (e.g. "Supplier (supplier.com)") — see below |
| Status | Current automation status (see below) |
| Step | Current follow-up step in the sequence |
| Next Follow-up | Scheduled time for the next follow-up |
Dual-Track: Customer and Supplier
A deal can have one customer track and multiple supplier tracks simultaneously. Each supplier is identified by their email domain — an independent track runs per domain.
- A deal can appear with multiple rows in the table (one per track)
- Each track has its own status, step, and next follow-up date
- Actions like Stop only affect the respective track — the others continue running
- Block affects the entire deal (all tracks)
- Supplier tracks are displayed in the Track column with their domain (e.g. "Supplier (supplier.com)")
The track is automatically determined based on the recipient of the original activity:
- Customer: The recipient is the contact person linked to the deal
- Supplier: The recipient is another external address (e.g. a supplier in CC). The track is assigned to the recipient's domain (e.g.
supplier:supplier.com) - Internal: All recipient domains belong to the own organization (→ no automation, see Email Blacklist)
Email Linking with Pipedrive
When an Outlook connection is active, follow-up emails are automatically displayed in the Email tab of the Pipedrive deal. Vita-Drive.Ai uses Pipedrive's Smart BCC for this: on every send, the deal-specific BCC address is automatically added so that Pipedrive can associate the email with the correct deal.
This works in both direct send and draft mode (the BCC address is added to the draft).
Email Threading
Follow-up emails are automatically sent as replies to the latest email in the deal (reply threading). This creates a continuous email conversation in Outlook and Pipedrive instead of separate, isolated messages. The subject is automatically prefixed with "Re:".
Status Values
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Customer: Follow-up | Activity was classified as a customer inquiry, follow-up sequence is running |
| Supplier: Follow-up | Activity was classified as a supplier inquiry |
| Stopped | Automation was stopped (e.g. by customer reply or manually) |
| Blocked | Deal has been permanently excluded from automation |
Actions per Deal
Via the three-dot menu (...) at the end of each row, you can:
- View details — Opens a side panel with all deal information and the activity log
- Send draft — Only visible when a draft is available (send mode "Create as draft"). Sends the prepared follow-up draft
- Stop — Ends the running follow-up sequence for this deal. Already scheduled jobs will be cancelled
- Block permanently — Permanently excludes the deal from automation. The deal will no longer be processed automatically, even on future scans
Stop vs. Block: If you stop a deal, it can be picked up again on a subsequent scan. Blocking prevents this permanently.
Resuming a Stopped Automation
When an automation has been stopped (e.g. due to a customer reply), you have two options:
Restart the Automation
Change the due date of the source activity in Pipedrive. Vita-Drive.Ai detects the change automatically and restarts the follow-up sequence from the current step — at your chosen date.
Typical workflow:
- Customer replies → automation stops, "VT Bearbeiten" task is created
- You read the reply and decide: further follow-up needed
- You set the due date of the source activity to the desired date
- Vita-Drive.Ai restarts the sequence automatically on that date
Keep the Automation Stopped
Mark the source activity in Pipedrive as done. The automation stays stopped and will not be restarted.
Use the source activity's due date as a control mechanism: change date = restart, mark as done = finish.
Deal Details
The side panel shows:
- Assigned to — The user the deal is assigned to
- Contact data — Person, email, organization
- Automation status — Current status and step
- Timestamps — Next follow-up and last customer reply
- Action buttons — Send draft, Stop, Block
Activity Log
Below the deal information, you'll see a timeline of all automation actions:
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Classification | The AI analyzed the activity and assigned a type (e.g. customer inquiry with confidence score) |
| Follow-up generated | A follow-up email was created. The subject line is shown in the timeline |
| Follow-up deferred | The follow-up was postponed (e.g. because a draft hasn't been sent yet) |
| Automatically stopped | The automation was stopped by the system (e.g. customer reply detected) |
| Manually stopped | A user manually stopped the automation |
| VT created | A "VT Bearbeiten" activity was created in Pipedrive. If the customer reply was analyzed by AI, the note contains a summary of the reply (in the customer's language) and optionally a suggested follow-up date |
| Manually started | A user manually started the automation |
| Blocked | The deal was permanently blocked |
| Draft sent | A prepared email draft was sent |
| Error | An error occurred (details are shown in red) |
When a customer reply is detected, Vita-Drive.Ai creates a task in Pipedrive with the following note:
Customer replied: "Re: Angebot Softwarelösung"
Summary: Kunde bittet um mehr Zeit zur Prüfung, erwähnt bevorstehenden Urlaub nächste Woche.
Suggested follow-up: 2026-02-28 (+7 days)
Please review and follow up manually.
The summary is written in the customer's language. The suggested follow-up date only appears when the AI detects a time-related hint in the reply (e.g. "next week", "end of the month", vacation mention).
Manual Scan
Click Scan now to immediately check all due Pipedrive activities. Normally this happens automatically via webhooks and a fallback scan every 4 hours.
Use the manual scan after initial setup to capture existing activities.
Start Deal Manually
Click Manual start above the deal table to start automation for a specific deal:
- Enter the Pipedrive Deal ID (found in the deal's URL in Pipedrive)
- Click Start
Vita-Drive.Ai starts the follow-up sequence for the specified deal, regardless of AI classification.
Manual start skips classification. The follow-up sequence begins directly at step 1.