A swarm lets one Worker Bee do different things depending on the event. For example, a payment from a regular giver could create a stewardship task, while every other payment posts to your fundraising channel. The bee checks its branches in order and runs the actions of the first branch whose conditions all match. The other branches are skipped.

Before you start

• You need workerbees:admin:automations, plus any permission the branch actions require.
• Read Which filters work today. The same limits apply to branch conditions: only is conditions on the triggering record’s own fields match.

Set up the branches

1. Start a new Worker Bee, choose its trigger events and choose Next.
2. On the Filter step, choose Swarm.
3. Choose Add a branch. Give it a name, such as “Regular givers”, in Branch name.
4. Choose Add a filter inside the branch and set its condition. A branch with several conditions matches only when all of them match.
5. Repeat for each branch, in priority order. The first branch that matches wins.
6. For a fallback, add a last branch with no conditions. It shows Always matches and catches every event the branches above missed.
7. Choose Next.

Add branch conditions on the Filter step. The Criteria row on the Actions step uses a plain text field name, and a condition added there with Add criterion currently stops the branch from being completed. If that happens, remove the condition and add it on the Filter step instead.

Give each branch its actions

On the Actions step, each branch appears as Branch 1, Branch 2 and so on, with a fallback badge on a branch that has no conditions.

1. Under Actions in each branch, choose an action from Action and fill in its settings. Choose Add action for more.
2. Use the ↑ and ↓ buttons to change the order of the branches.
3. Choose Next, check the Swarm branches summary on Review (marked “first match wins”), then choose Create worker bee.

Each branch needs at least one complete action before you can continue. A branch still missing settings shows an incomplete badge.

Avoid unreachable branches

A branch with no conditions always matches. If it isn’t the last branch, every branch after it can never run, and the wizard warns you: “All branches after it are unreachable and will never fire.” Move the fallback to the end, or add conditions to it.

What you’ll see

Only the winning branch’s actions run, so flight history shows one row for each of that branch’s actions. If no branch matches and you have no fallback, nothing runs and nothing is recorded.

See the trigger reference for the fields each event can be filtered on.