If you’re tired of leads slipping through the cracks, or just sick of updating your CRM by hand, you’re in the right place. This guide is for sales and marketing folks who want to set up actual automated workflows in Insightly for lead management—without needing an IT degree or a 3-day YouTube binge. I’ll walk you through the real steps, skip the nonsense, and give you a few watch-outs so you don’t waste time on features that look good in demos but flop in practice.
Why Automated Workflows Matter (and Where They Don’t)
Let’s be honest: most teams don’t need to automate everything, but some things are just begging to be put on autopilot. Good automation in Insightly can:
- Make sure leads get followed up with (and not by five people at once)
- Cut down on repetitive admin work
- Surface hot leads before they go cold
But—and this is important—over-automating can actually slow you down or annoy your team. So, start small and build up.
Step 1: Map Out Your Actual Lead Process
Before you click a single button in Insightly, sketch out (on paper, whiteboard, or napkin) how a lead flows through your business. For example:
- Lead comes in (web form, email, etc.)
- Someone reviews and qualifies it
- Assign to a rep
- Rep follows up, updates status
- Lead becomes Opportunity, or gets marked lost
Pro Tip: If your current process is “whoever sees it first grabs it,” get clear on who should own what, or automation just makes the chaos faster.
Step 2: Get Your Pipelines and Stages Set Up
Insightly uses “Pipelines” and “Stages” to track progress. For lead management, you’ll probably want a Lead Pipeline, something like:
- New Lead
- Contacted
- Qualified
- Proposal Sent
- Won/Lost
How to set it up:
- Go to System Settings > Pipelines.
- Click Add Pipeline. Name it something obvious, like “Lead Management.”
- Add stages—keep these simple at first. (You can always tweak later.)
What works: Fewer stages keep things moving. If you’re breaking hairs over “Contacted” vs. “Initial Contact Made,” you’re probably overthinking it.
Step 3: Build Your Workflow Automation Rules
This is where you stop doing boring stuff by hand.
Insightly calls these “Workflow Automation Rules.” They can update fields, send notifications, assign leads, and more. Here’s how to build useful ones for lead management:
3.1. Automatically Assign New Leads
If every new lead sits in the same queue until someone remembers it, you’re already losing deals. Here’s how to auto-assign:
- Go to System Settings > Automation > Workflow Automation.
- Click Add Workflow Rule. Set it to Lead object, When a record is created.
- Add a condition if needed (e.g., only assign leads from certain sources).
- Set the action to Update Field → Owner → choose a specific user or use “Round Robin” if you want to rotate.
What doesn’t work: Spreading leads evenly doesn’t guarantee follow-up. Make sure reps can handle what they get.
3.2. Send Alerts for Hot Leads
Let’s say you want sales to jump on leads from your pricing page:
- In your workflow rule, set a condition for Lead Source = Pricing Page.
- Add an action: Send Email to the sales team or assigned rep.
Skip: Don’t set up email alerts for every lead. You’ll train everyone to ignore them.
3.3. Move Leads Automatically Based on Activity
If a lead hasn’t been touched in X days, nudge someone:
- Workflow rule: When a record is updated.
- Condition: Last Activity Date is more than 3 days ago AND Stage is Contacted or Qualified.
- Action: Send Email or Create Task for the owner to follow up.
Caution: Automated nagging quickly becomes background noise. Use sparingly.
Step 4: Automate Routine Updates—But Don’t Overdo It
You can set up rules to automatically:
- Change status when a field is updated (e.g., mark lead as “Qualified” when a score hits a threshold)
- Create tasks for common next steps
- Update custom fields
What works: Automating things that always happen next—like creating a “Follow Up” task after a call—saves time.
What to ignore: Don’t auto-update fields that require judgment (like “Likelihood to Close”). Automation isn’t psychic.
Step 5: Test Your Workflows on Dummy Data
Don’t throw new automation into a live system and hope for the best. Create some test leads and run them through your pipeline:
- Did leads get assigned correctly?
- Did the right emails or tasks get triggered?
- Did anything weird happen (like a lead stuck in a loop)?
Pro Tip: Keep an “Automation Log” (even a simple doc) with what each rule does, why it exists, and when you last tweaked it. It’ll save your bacon later.
Step 6: Train Your Team—Briefly
No one reads 20-page PDFs. Instead:
- Show your team how new leads will show up and what’s expected of them
- Explain which tasks or alerts are automated, so they don’t double up
- Tell them who to talk to if something breaks
Skip: Don’t try to automate away every possible error. People will always find creative ways to break things.
Step 7: Monitor, Adjust, and Keep It Simple
Check back after a week or two:
- Are leads moving faster?
- Are people ignoring alerts?
- Is anything falling through the cracks?
Tweak your workflows based on what’s actually happening—not what you thought would happen.
What works: Iterating. Automation that saves five minutes a day adds up. Trying to automate every possible scenario just makes things harder to debug.
Some Honest Limitations of Insightly’s Automation
- No-code, but not magic: You don’t need to code, but some logic (like branching based on multiple conditions) is clunky.
- Email alerts get old fast: Don’t count on emails alone to drive action.
- Not a full-blown marketing automation tool: For serious nurture campaigns, look elsewhere or integrate with a dedicated platform.
Shortcuts, Tips, and What to Avoid
- Start with one pipeline and a couple of rules. See what works before adding more.
- Use clear naming. “Assign New Lead – Web Form” is better than “Rule 1.”
- Review automations quarterly. Things change, and old rules can cause headaches.
- Don’t chase every new feature. If it doesn’t solve a problem you have, skip it.
Wrapping Up
Setting up automated workflows in Insightly isn’t rocket science, but it pays to start small, focus on the real bottlenecks, and keep your process as simple as possible. Don’t let automation become its own project management nightmare—build what you need, see if it helps, and tweak as you go. The best workflows are the ones your team barely notices—because they just work.
Now, get back to selling (or at least, stop babysitting your CRM).