Setting up auto-response rules

Now that we have set up the web-to-lead, an important function to support the submission of a form is auto-response rules. Auto-response rules allow you to automate the email that a user receives when a lead is submitted via a web-to-lead form based on specific criteria on the lead record, such as the lead source. Let's see how auto-response rules are created: 

  1. First, navigate to the Home tab of the Setup page (see label 1 in the following screenshot):

  1. From here, we move to Marketing (see label 2 in the preceding screenshot), then click on Lead Auto-Response Rules (see label 3 in the preceding screenshot). The following screenshot shows the auto-response rules creation page:

  1. On the Auto-Response screen, click on New, which leads you to the following screen:

  1. We then move to the Active checkbox (see label 1 in the preceding screenshot), enter the rule name (see label 2 in the preceding screenshot), and click on Save (see label 3 in the preceding screenshot) to lead you to the following screen:

  1. The preceding screenshot shows you the created auto-response rule. Next, let's click on New to create a rule entry. Clicking on New leads to the following rule entry creation screen:

The preceding screenshot shows you the steps to add a rule entry:

    1. Sort Order: Salesforce evaluates all of the entries on an auto-response rule with this option. Once a match is found, the response is sent and the evaluation stops. This field allows you to determine the order that the rule entries are evaluated.
    2. Select the criteria for this rule entry: For our business use case, the criteria for this rule is any lead where the Lead Source field is set to Web. Any leads created through the web meets these criteria and triggers this auto-response rule.
    3. Name and Email Address: This is the name and email address that shows up on the response email.
    4. Email Template: This is the email template used for the auto-response rule.
    5. Save: Clicking on Save completes the rule entry creation.

You can create many rule entries based on the complexity of your business use case. Next, let's take a look at the lead settings and lead processes.