Set up and steer follow-up sequences

A sequence is a planned chain of follow-up emails that Flino sends automatically after an offer has gone out. You build sequences once under Sequences and start them on individual offers.

The fastest way: the standard sequence with one click

You do not have to build your own sequence to get going. Open an offer. As long as no sequence is running there, the Follow-up automation card shows the recommendation Recommended: standard follow-up: 3 emails over about 2 weeks (day 3, 8, 15), sent Mon–Fri 9–11 (Berlin), stops automatically on a reply or status change. Preview shows you the steps up front; for individual steps you can create an example text for this offer there with Generate example text. Start standard sequence makes following up active for this offer right away.

The first two emails are written by the AI at send time from your offer context; the final email is a fixed text. The sequence then appears under Sequences with the Flino standard badge, where you can inspect and adjust it. If you switch it to inactive there, the offer page hides the recommendation and only shows the list of your own sequences.

Right after you send an offer, Flino also asks “Offer sent. Have Flino follow up automatically?”. Activate follow-up takes you to the Follow-up automation card, where you start the sequence.

The prerequisites are an assigned contact with an email address and a connected mailbox (Gmail or Outlook). Without a mailbox Flino still sets up the sequence but only sends once you have connected one; until then it shows Paused (mailbox missing). If the contact has no salutation, the card first shows Salutation not set. Add it with Set salutation or continue with Skip.

The Sequences page

Under Sequences you find, from top to bottom:

the collapsible box How does the autopilot work? with send times, what happens on a customer reply and on won or lost, and the adaptive rules (see below),
the Template library with ready-made sequences, grouped into General follow-up, No reply yet, Price & objections, Warm lead and Closing & decision,
the After project completion section with the feedback sequence (see NPS feedback),
My sequences, i.e. all saved sequences of your organisation.

Each card under My sequences shows the number of steps, on how many offers the sequence is currently active, paused or done, and a line for the last 7 days (emails sent, replies, reply rate). Badges mark the Default sequence, the Flino standard sequence, sequences from the shared library of your company account (Team) and adaptive sequences (adaptive). Follow-ups opens the queue, filtered to this sequence. The Active switch removes a sequence from every picker without archiving it. The menu (⋯) holds Edit and Archive.

Create a sequence

Go to Sequences on the left.
Under My sequences, click Create new. Or take a sequence from the Template library as a starting point and click Customise template there.
Give it a Name and optionally a Description (optional).
Leave the Active switch on, otherwise you cannot start the sequence on any offer. Optional: Set as default.
Add steps with Add step. For each step you set:
- How should this email be created? (one of the three modes, see below)
- Delay (days): 0 to 90 days after the previous step; for the first step, counted from the start of the sequence
- Tone: Default, Casual (Du) or Formal (Sie)
- Subject and the text or briefing
Click Create (when editing: Save).

With Tone, Default uses your organisation’s default salutation. Casual or Formal applies to this step only. If you have set a salutation style on the contact itself, it takes precedence over both, see AI writing style and salutation.

The three modes for the email content

Per step you pick one of three modes. They differ in how much the AI writes for you.

”I write it myself”

Your email is sent exactly as you wrote it. With Insert variable you add placeholders such as salutation, first name or offer title; Flino fills them in at send time. The list of placeholders is under Templates.

In this mode you can also load templates from your library: in the Load from template library area, click Load template and pick one of your templates. Subject and body are copied over and you can keep editing. If the template contains placeholders Flino does not know, the editor warns with “Unknown variables – sending will be paused when encountered”.

”My text + AI addition”

You write the frame of the email yourself, with placeholders as above. In addition you insert AI variables that Flino fills with a short, fitting section at send time:

{{cta_block}} (AI call-to-action (CTA)): one concrete next step in 1–2 short sentences, for example a question or a meeting suggestion.
{{custom_block}} (AI personalization paragraph): a short paragraph that relates to the offer, without its own call to action.

If the text contains no AI variable, the email goes out as a regular template. Load template as base takes a template from your library and switches the step to “I write it myself” in the process.

”AI writes the email”

The AI writes subject and body in full at send time, from offer, contact and context data. In the Briefing for the AI (optional) field you set tone and focus (e.g. “Follow up in a friendly way and ask whether there are open questions”). The AI treats the subject you enter as a hint. There is no live preview of the text in this mode.

Which mode when? If your wording must be exact, pick “I write it myself”. For some variation within a fixed frame, pick “My text + AI addition”. If the AI should write each email from scratch, pick “AI writes the email”.

Sequences from the After project completion section have a fourth mode, NPS email (automatic), for the feedback survey after a won deal.

Hints, preview and test email

The editor points out typical problems without blocking the save: a missing automatic greeting or closing, several strong calls to action in one email, and a Possible language mismatch when a step appears to be written in a language other than your default email language.

Below each step, Preview opens a rendering with sample data. With Select offer for preview you use one of your recent offers instead. Once a real offer is selected, Send test email to me appears: the email goes to your own address and does not affect any running sequence.

Acceptance and booking link variables

In the “I write it myself” and “My text + AI addition” modes you can use optional variables for the online acceptance link ({{offer_acceptance_link}}, {{offer_acceptance_cta_block}}) and a booking link ({{booking_link}}, {{booking_cta_block}}). Both groups are off by default. You enable the acceptance link under Settings → Email and the booking link under Settings → Sales Room (which also needs an HTTPS URL). Details and behaviour: Templates.

What Flino checks in AI emails

Before an email from an “AI writes the email” step goes out, Flino checks the draft:

Placeholders in square brackets such as [first name] are replaced with real offer and contact data. If one is left over, the email is not sent.
Numbers and dates must come from your offer data. Flino removes sentences with percentages that do not appear there. A date that cannot be backed up stops the send.
The salutation stays with Du or Sie throughout the email, matching the salutation you have set.
The email contains a single call to action and at most one question.
The target length is 60 to 110 words in three short paragraphs. Flino adds the closing itself, matching Du or Sie.

If a draft breaks a rule, Flino generates it again. If that also fails, Flino either sends a neutral fallback text, depending on the rule, or pauses the sequence and sends you a notification that starts with “Follow-up pausiert:”. You can then write the email yourself or resume the sequence; Flino tries again at the next send slot.

Start a sequence on an offer

Open the offer.
In the Follow-up automation card, pick a sequence in the Choose sequence… dropdown. It starts as soon as you select it.
If you do not have your own sequence yet, the card shows Create sequence instead; the button takes you to Sequences.

Toast “Sequence active – next email on [date]”. The card now shows:

the sequence name, Step X of Y and Status: Active
Next email: [time] with the note “Will be sent today within the sending window.” or “Scheduled for the next allowed business slot.”
the planned step and the one after it (“After: [subject] (in X days)”)
the commitments “Stops automatically on customer reply” and “Send only Mon–Fri 09:00–11:00 | holidays are skipped”

Send window

Flino only sends follow-ups in a fixed time window:

Weekdays: Monday to Friday
Time: 09:00–11:00 Europe/Berlin; within the window Flino spreads emails over a few minutes
Holidays: the nationwide German public holidays (New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Labour Day, Ascension Day, Whit Monday, German Unity Day, Christmas Day and Boxing Day) are skipped. Regional holidays such as Corpus Christi count as normal working days.

A step’s delay counts from the send of the previous step. If the date falls outside the window, Flino moves the email to the next valid slot. The offer’s Activities then show “Send rescheduled” with the reason “Reason: outside sending window (Mon–Fri 09:00–11:00)”.

The send window is fixed. There is no setting to change the send times. Mon–Fri, 09:00–11:00 Europe/Berlin applies to every organisation.

Adaptive follow-ups

On top of the fixed schedule, Flino reacts to signals from your customer. This applies to sequences with the adaptive badge: every sequence that was active when the feature was introduced in September 2026, and every sequence created since. Follow-ups you start after a sequence became adaptive run adaptively; older runs keep their fixed plan. The sequence card lists the active rules under Adaptive triggers. The rules cannot be configured in the interface.

Trigger	What happens
Send earlier when opened	When the customer opens the offer online, Flino moves the next email forward, by at most two days and only into the send window.
Send before expiry	When the offer’s valid-until date approaches, Flino moves the next email forward so it arrives about two days before expiry. Again by at most two days.
Pause on extension request	If the customer asks for more time on the offer page, the sequence pauses with the reason Customer asked for an extension.
Pause on message	If the customer writes a message on the offer page, the sequence pauses as it would for an email reply (Customer replied).
Postpone when out of office	Meant for absence notices: the next email should move back. If the absence notice arrives by email, however, Flino has already paused the sequence as it does for any reply, see below.

The two pull-forward rules only move an email earlier, never past its planned date. More on the offer page under Acceptance link.

Pause a sequence

Click Pause in the Follow-up automation card. The next planned email does not go out. Toast “Sequence paused”. You can also pause in the queue and in the pipeline.

Pause reasons

Flino also pauses sequences on its own. You see the reason in the queue and in the pipeline. On the offer page it appears as a note above the sequence, worded slightly differently for some reasons (e.g. Reconnect mailbox instead of Mailbox not connected).

Reason	When	What you can do
Customer replied	The customer replied by email or wrote on the offer page	Read the reply, answer, resume if needed
Paused by you	You paused on the offer or in the queue	Resume
Paused in the pipeline	You paused in the pipeline	Resume
Call logged	You logged an inbound call	Resume once Flino should follow up again
Reaction logged	You logged a reaction with “Use for follow-ups”	Resume once Flino should follow up again
Customer will get back later	You paused via the Flino recommendation because the customer wants to decide later	Resume later
Out of office detected	You paused via the Flino recommendation for an absence notice	Resume when the customer is back
Customer asked for an extension	The customer asked for a longer deadline on the offer page	Set a new deadline or reply
Stopped by the assistant	The AI assistant (e.g. “Ask Flino”) stopped the sequence	Resume
Information missing	Your imprint is incomplete	Complete Sender & Imprint under Settings → Organisation, then resume
Mailbox not connected	The Gmail or Outlook connection is missing or has expired	Reconnect the mailbox under Settings → Email
Template is broken / Unknown placeholders in the template	The step contains placeholders Flino does not know	Edit the step, then resume
AI text block unresolved	An AI section or AI draft failed the check	Write the email yourself or resume
A check stopped the send	The safety check before sending held the email back	Review the offer, then resume
Recipient unsubscribed	The customer used the unsubscribe link in the email to stop further reminders	Cannot be resumed; you can still reply manually
Removed from company account	You were removed from the company account	Cannot be resumed

For Information missing and Mailbox not connected you also get an in-app notification and an email. You control the email under Settings → Profile in the Email notifications card with the Sequence problems switch (on by default). The same email is sent when a sequence ends because the contact has no email address.

Absence notices

An automatic out-of-office reply pauses the sequence like any other reply, with the reason Customer replied. Flino does recognise it as an Out of office notice, though: the Flino recommendation card on the offer then shows “Out of office” instead of a reply recommendation. Check the email and resume the sequence with Reactivate if Flino should keep following up once the customer is back.

Resume a sequence

Click Resume. If a customer reply paused the sequence, the button is called Reactivate. Flino schedules the pending step for the next valid send slot, i.e. today within the window or on the next working day, not after the step’s delay. Toast “Sequence active – next email on [date]”.

After you answer in the reply composer, Flino offers this directly: the toast “Reply sent.” has the action Resume sequence. If the recipient has unsubscribed or you were removed from the company account, the sequence cannot be resumed.

Change a sequence

Click Change sequence.
Pick the new sequence in the Choose new sequence… dropdown. The change happens as soon as you select it; toast “Sequence changed”.

The new sequence starts at step 1, with the delay of its first step. The current sequence is not offered in the list. Change sequence also lets you start a new sequence after a completed one. To run the same sequence again, use Restart sequence in the Sequence tab of the reply composer, see React to replies.

A sequence ends automatically

An active sequence ends automatically when

all steps have been sent,
the status changes to Won or Lost (e.g. after an acceptance via the acceptance link),
the offer’s valid-until date has passed (checked at the next due send),
the contact has no email address at send time.

The card then shows the disabled button Sequence completed and a note that you can start a new sequence via Change sequence. The Suggested next step card at the top of the offer offers Start new sequence for this.

Archive a sequence

Sequences are archived rather than deleted. On the sequence card, open the menu (⋯) and click Archive. The dialog “Archive sequence?” tells you on how many offers it is currently running.

The sequence disappears from My sequences and from every picker, and loses its default flag.
Offers where it ran or is running keep the assignment and their history. Running follow-ups continue until they end or you pause or change them on the offer.
The queue and the pipeline show “(archived)” after the name.

Archived sequences are listed at the bottom of the page under Archived sequences (X). Restore brings a sequence back and switches it to active again; mark it as default again if you need to.

Overview of every follow-up: queue

Every follow-up of your organisation, with next send time, pause reason and quick actions, is under Queue. The page is described under Queue.

Common error cases

Problem	Fix
Create sequence instead of a dropdown on the offer	You have no active sequence of your own yet. Create one under Sequences or start the standard sequence.
”Email address missing” in the Follow-up automation card	Add the contact’s address with Add email address
”Follow-ups can only be activated once a contact is assigned.”	Assign a contact to the offer
Paused (mailbox missing)	Connect a mailbox under Settings → Email
”This sequence has no steps yet. Please add some under “Sequences”.”	Edit the sequence and add at least one step
”A sequence is already running for this offer.”	Switch the running sequence via Change sequence

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