Automate Notifications and Post-submit Actions

Overview

Once a form is live, you'll often want something to happen the moment it's submitted. Maybe your team needs an instant notification. Maybe you want a confirmation sent to the person who filled it in. Or maybe the data needs to flow into another system straight away.

That's what automated actions are for. You configure them inside your form template, attach them to a specific trigger — like Submitted, Saved, or Created — and CX Platform takes it from there. Each form can have multiple actions, so you can notify your team, acknowledge the submitter, and trigger an external integration all at once.

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Open your form template

In the Receive module, go to Form management and select Templates.
Open the form template you want to automate.
Click the Actions tab to view or add automation rules for this form.

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Add a new action

Click Add action to create a new automated action.
Choose the Status that will trigger this action — for example, Submitted, Saved, Created, or Expired.
Fill in the action details using the fields described below, then click Save.

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Action configuration fields

Here's a quick rundown of what each field does and when to use it.

Field	What it's for
Type	The kind of action to perform. Choose CX Engine Email or CX Engine SMS to send a notification or confirmation via CX Platform, or Webhook to push data to an external system.
Description	A short note about what this action does. It's just for your team's reference but it makes a real difference when you're reviewing a list of actions later — or when someone else needs to understand what you set up.
Enabled	Toggle this on or off to activate or pause the action without deleting it. Handy for testing or temporarily disabling an integration.
CX Application Code	If your action is sending a communication via CX Engine, map it to the relevant Application and message type in the Send module.
CX Channel	Set the delivery channel for the action — Email or SMS. Only relevant for CX Engine action types.
Payload encoding type	Choose how the form data is formatted when it's sent — None, HTML/XML, or JSON. Match this to what your receiving system expects.
Payload	The data included with the action. You can use tokens like `%%FORMDATA%%` to include the full form submission, or build a custom payload for your integration.

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What you can automate

A few common examples to give you a sense of what's possible:

Internal notifications — send an email or SMS to your team the moment a new form is submitted, so nothing sits unactioned.
Acknowledgement to the submitter — send an automatic confirmation back to the person who filled in the form, letting them know it was received.
External integrations — trigger a Webhook or send data to an API for further processing in your CRM, workflow tool, or data platform.
Status-based follow-ups — set actions on Saved or Expired events to handle reminders, escalations, or clean-up tasks automatically.

‍Example: A new member registration form has two actions on Submitted: one sends a confirmation email to the member via CX Platform using the FORMNEW01 – New member confirmation Application, and a second fires a Webhook to update the membership database. Both run automatically, the moment the form is submitted.

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Before you go live

A couple of things worth doing before your actions start running in production:

Name and describe every action clearly — you'll thank yourself later when reviewing audit logs or handing over to a colleague.
Test in a test environment first — submit a sample response and confirm each action fires as expected before switching to live.
Review and update regularly — as your forms and workflows evolve, it's worth checking that your actions still match what you need. Outdated automations can trigger unnecessary notifications or send data to the wrong place.

Once your actions are configured and tested, the whole flow runs on its own. Form submitted, actions fire, your team is notified, your systems are updated — all without anyone needing to chase it manually.

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