Birthday Assistant Overview
Why This Matters
Remembering client birthdays strengthens relationships and builds loyalty, but tracking dates manually becomes impossible as your contact list grows. The Birthday Assistant automates birthday recognition so you never miss an opportunity to make someone feel valued.
Whether you want to send automated birthday emails, create personal reminder tasks, or trigger multi-step workflows, the Birthday Assistant handles the monitoring and execution. Once configured, it runs continuously in the background, checking for upcoming birthdays and taking the actions you've specified. You maintain the personal touch without the administrative burden.
Strong client relationships drive referrals and repeat business. A simple birthday message shows you care about people as individuals, not just as transactions. The Birthday Assistant makes this level of personalization scalable and sustainable.
What the Birthday Assistant Does
The Birthday Assistant automatically tracks client birthdays and triggers actions on or before their special day. Instead of checking your database every morning or relying on memory, the Birthday Assistant monitors upcoming birthdays and either creates reminder tasks for you or sends automated birthday emails on your behalf.
You control who is included by choosing to track everyone in your database or limiting tracking to specific contacts using tags. You decide the timing—whether actions happen two weeks before, one day before, or on the actual birthday. You choose the action: create a to-do reminder, send an email template, or trigger a workflow that can perform multiple steps at once.
Once configured, the Birthday Assistant runs daily in the background, checking for birthdays that match your criteria and executing your chosen actions automatically. You don't need to run it manually or remember to check it.
Watch & Learn
🎥 Video: The Birthday Assistant
How the Birthday Assistant Works
Accessing the Feature: Navigate to Automation in your main menu and select Birthday Assistant. The settings page controls who is included, when actions trigger, and what happens automatically.
Deciding Who Should Be Included: Choose from three options. Select "Nobody. Disable birthday assistant" to turn it off temporarily without deleting your configuration. Choose "Run birthday assistant for all contacts" to monitor every contact with a birthday entered in their contact record. Select "Run birthday assistant ONLY for contacts with this Tag" to limit tracking to contacts with a specific tag like "Birthday," "VIP Client," or "Active Customers." This tag-based approach lets you focus on current clients while excluding vendors, inactive contacts, or other groups.
Setting the Timing: Pick how far in advance the action should occur. You can choose 14 days before (ideal for mailing physical cards), 7 days before (provides a week's notice for planning), 3 days before (gives a short heads-up), 1 day before (next-day reminder), or on their birthday (perfect for automated emails arriving the same day). Match your timing to your chosen action. If you're sending automated emails, "on their birthday" ensures messages arrive on the special day. If you need time to mail cards or plan gifts, choose 7 to 14 days before.
Choosing What Should Happen: Select one or more actions to trigger at your chosen time. "Add a Birthday Reminder To-Do" creates a task on your to-do list so you can call, send a text, mail a card, or deliver a gift personally. "Send Email Template" automatically sends a birthday email from your Email Templates library, allowing you to set it once and have every recipient receive a thoughtful message on schedule. "Apply Workflow" triggers an automation sequence that can perform multiple actions simultaneously: send email, create tasks, apply tags, add the contact to a board, and more. Note that workflows trigger only for the primary contact, not related contacts in the same household.
You can combine multiple actions. For example, send an automated email to everyone while also creating a to-do reminder for VIP clients who deserve a personal phone call.
Saving Your Configuration: Click Save and the Birthday Assistant immediately begins monitoring based on your settings. It runs automatically every day in the background, checking for birthdays that match your timing criteria and executing your chosen actions.
Tracking Birthdays in Contact Records
The Birthday Assistant relies on birthday data entered in your contact records. Use the Birthday field on each Contact Card to enter the primary contact's birthday. For additional birthdays like children's birthdays or wedding anniversaries, use the Special Events tab on the Contact Record where you can add multiple dates with custom labels.
You can enter birthdays individually as you work with contacts, or import birthday data in bulk during contact imports. The more complete your birthday data, the more effective your Birthday Assistant becomes.
Birthday & Anniversary Report
The Birthday & Anniversary Report complements the Birthday Assistant by providing a manual view of upcoming special events. Navigate to Reports and select Birthday & Anniversary Report. Choose a specific month and optionally filter by category to narrow the list.
This report shows all special events for the selected period, allowing you to work from the list, print it, or print labels for card mailings. Use the icon on the right side of each entry to add contacts to Group Actions for bulk processing.
The report pulls from the same Birthday and Special Events fields used by the Birthday Assistant, giving you both automated and manual options for birthday recognition.
Common Use Cases
Full Automation for Large Client Base: Run the assistant for all contacts, trigger on the birthday, and send a birthday email template. This approach scales effortlessly as your contact list grows.
VIP-Only Personal Outreach: Use a "VIP Client" tag, trigger 14 days before the birthday, and create a to-do reminder for a personal call or handwritten card. This keeps high-value relationships personal while automating the reminder.
Tiered Recognition: Create different approaches for different client tiers. A-level clients get a to-do 7 days early for personal outreach. B-level clients receive an automated email on their birthday. C-level clients aren't tracked at all.
Birthday Campaign With Incentive: Trigger a workflow that sends a birthday email with a special discount code, applies a "Birthday Offer Sent" tag for tracking, creates a 7-day follow-up task if the offer isn't redeemed, and adds the contact to a board for monitoring redemptions.
Anniversaries and Annual Dates: Use the birthday field or Special Events to track client anniversaries, membership renewals, or contract end dates. Trigger reminders ahead of time so you can reach out before critical dates.
Team Coordination: When creating to-do reminders, the system assigns them to the contact's assigned user so each client gets a personal touch from their account manager.
Combining Automation and Personal Touch
The Birthday Assistant isn't all-or-nothing. You can blend automation with personal outreach to match your business style and client relationships.
For example, automate birthday emails for your entire client base to ensure everyone receives recognition, but also create to-do reminders for your top 20 clients so you remember to call them personally. Or send automated emails to most clients while using workflows to trigger special offers or multi-touch sequences for high-value segments.
The key is choosing the right level of automation for each client relationship. Not every contact requires a phone call, but every contact deserves recognition.
Opt-In Status and Email Sending
When you configure the Birthday Assistant to send email templates, it automatically respects opt-in status. Contacts who are not opted in for marketing emails are skipped, ensuring compliance with permission-based email requirements.
To-do reminders and workflow triggers occur regardless of opt-in status since they're internal actions. However, any email-sending steps within workflows will also respect opt-in rules automatically.
Questions and Answers
Q: How do I enter birthdays for my contacts?
A: Use the Birthday field on each Contact Card to enter the primary contact's birthday. For additional dates like children's birthdays or anniversaries, go to the Special Events tab on the Contact Record where you can add multiple dates with custom labels. You can also import birthday data in bulk during contact imports.
Q: Can I use different email templates for different groups of contacts?
A: Not within a single Birthday Assistant configuration. The assistant uses one email template for all contacts it processes.
Q: What happens if I change my Birthday Assistant settings after it's already running?
A: Changes take effect immediately for all upcoming birthdays. Tasks or emails that have already been scheduled or sent are not retroactively changed. The new settings apply only to birthdays the system processes after you save the changes.
Q: Can I test the Birthday Assistant before using it with real clients?
A: Yes. Create a test contact and set their birthday to tomorrow's date. Configure your Birthday Assistant settings and wait for the automated action to occur. This lets you verify the timing, email content, and workflow behavior before rolling it out to your entire contact list.
Q: Does the Birthday Assistant work for related contacts in the same household?
A: To-do reminders and email templates work for all contacts who meet your criteria, including the primary contact and other contact. However, workflows trigger only for the primary contact in a household, not for the second contact.
Q: Can I exclude certain contacts even if they match my tag criteria?
A: The Birthday Assistant doesn't have exclusion rules. Instead, be selective with your tagging. Apply tags only to contacts you want included, or use more specific tags like "Active Birthday Clients" instead of generic tags. You can also temporarily remove tags from contacts you want to exclude.
Q: Will the Birthday Assistant send emails to contacts who haven't opted in?
A: No. All email sending respects opt-in status automatically. Contacts who are not opted in for marketing emails are skipped when the Birthday Assistant attempts to send email templates. To-do reminders still get created regardless of opt-in status since they're internal tasks.
Q: Can I pause the Birthday Assistant during busy seasons or holidays?
A: Yes. Navigate to Automation → Birthday Assistant and select "Nobody. Disable birthday assistant." You can re-enable it later by selecting your preferred options again. This is useful if you want to pause birthday outreach during your busy season or while you're updating your approach.
Q: What time of day do birthday emails send?
A: Birthday emails send very early in the morning on the scheduled day so they're waiting in recipients' inboxes when they start their day.
Q: How can I see which contacts have birthdays coming up?
A: Use the Birthday & Anniversary Report to view all special events for a specific month. You can also use Advanced Search or Saved Search to find contacts with birthdays in a specific date range. This helps you preview who will receive recognition before the Birthday Assistant processes them.
Q: Can I track other special dates besides birthdays?
A: Yes. Use the Special Events tab on Contact Records to add custom dates like wedding anniversaries, account anniversaries, contract renewal dates, or any other significant date. You can view them in the Birthday & Anniversary Report for manual follow-up.
Guide Type: Feature Overview
Estimated Time: 7 minutes
Next Guides: Setup: Birthday Assistant, How to Create Email Templates, How to Manage Contact Tags
Video Transcript
You never want to forget your client’s birthday.
Maybe you want to send them an email or a greeting card, or you might want to call them.
Whatever the case, you certainly don’t want to forget their special day. The Birthday Assistant can help.
You have two choices in tracking your Contact’s birthday. You can track everyone’s birthday or just a select group.
If you want to track a select group, first create a Flag called Birthday, like this.
Then tell the Birthday Assistant only to look for contacts with that Flag. You can actually use any Flag, I just like to use a special Birthday Flag.
Here is where you tell you the system when you want the Birthday Assistant to run. And Here is where you tell the system what to do.
You can have the Birthday Assistant set a reminder for you, a to-do in case you want to send out a greeting card or make that special call.
Or you can have the Birthday Assistant automatically send an email, This would be an email that you’ve already set up in your Email Template library.
Once you have everything set just the way you like it, click save and you’re done.
Your Birthday Assistant is now on the job.
Now for all my Clients that have a Birthday Flag on their account, they will get a Happy Birthday email from me on their birthday, all done automatically by the Birthday Assistant.