Actions

An action is a step inside a workflow. Once the trigger fires, GCM walks through the connected actions in order, executing each one. The full catalog is grouped into five categories.

Member actions

These read or write the member table.

Action	What it does
find_member	Look up a member by phone, email, or custom criteria. Result available to later actions.
find_members_by_segment	Find all members matching a filter (returns a list to loop over).
create_member	Insert a new member record.
update_member	Change one or more fields on a member.
change_membership_type	Convert visitor → member, etc.
mark_member_lost	Set lost_at.
recover_member	Clear lost_at.
delete_member	Soft-delete.
assign_unit / remove_from_unit	Org-unit assignment.
assign_group / remove_from_group	Small-group assignment.
assign_ministry / remove_from_ministry	Ministry assignment.
enroll_school / graduate_school / remove_from_school	School program lifecycle.
add_note	Append a note to the member profile.

Communication actions

These send messages.

Action	What it does
send_message	Send via WhatsApp / SMS / email to a recipient.
send_notification	Send an in-app or web-push notification to staff.

Both let you pick from a template or compose inline. Merge tokens fill in dynamic data.

TIP

Always prefer templates over inline messages for production workflows. Editing a template later updates every workflow that uses it.

Flow-control actions

These control how the workflow walks the graph.

Action	What it does
condition	Branch on a boolean — true / false outputs
split	Run multiple branches in parallel
wait_delay	Pause N minutes / hours / days before continuing
wait_until	Pause until a specific date/time
wait_event	Pause until another event fires
go_to	Jump to another node (loop / skip)
for_each	Loop over a list — the previous action's output

The condition operators are rich: is, is_not, contains, greater_than, less_than, is_empty, matches_regex, is_exactly_n_days_ago, is_between_days_ago, is_today, is_within_last_n_days, is_in_next_n_days, is_during_business_hours, and several more.

Data actions

These manipulate data without changing members directly.

Action	What it does
set_variable	Store a value for use in later actions
aggregate	Count / sum / average over a list
math_operation	Add, subtract, multiply, divide
lookup	Read a single field from a related table

Integration actions

These reach outside GCM.

Action	What it does
send_webhook	POST to an external URL with a custom payload
create_task	Create a task in your team task-tracker

The webhook action is the escape hatch. If you need to talk to Zapier, Slack, your church management Google Sheet, or any other system, this is the way.

Configuring an action

Click any action node to open the config panel on the right. Every action has at minimum:

• Display name — what shows on the canvas.
• Action-specific config — recipient picker for messages, field selector for updates, etc.
• Error handling — what to do if the action fails (retry, skip, abort the run).

Most config fields support merge tokens, so you can build dynamic actions like "send a message to whoever the trigger's member's shepherd is" without writing code.

Error handling

Each action can be configured for failure. Options:

• Retry — try again up to N times with backoff.
• Skip and continue — log the error, move to the next action.
• Abort the run — stop the workflow here.

The defaults are sensible:

• send_message — retry 3 times then skip.
• update_member — abort on failure (data consistency).
• send_webhook — retry 3 times then skip.

Idempotency

Where possible, actions are idempotent — running them twice with the same input has the same effect as running once. This matters for retries and for accidental double-triggers. send_message in particular uses an idempotency key (workflow run ID + action ID + member ID) so the recipient never gets duplicates if the underlying call retries.

Custom actions

Custom action types are not user-configurable in v1. If you need behavior that's not in the catalog, use send_webhook to reach an external function. Email us if you have a recurring pattern that should be built in.

Common questions

Can an action talk to a different organization's data? No. All actions are scoped to the workflow's organization via current_org_id(). Even if you crafted a webhook payload to query another org, RLS would refuse.

Can I delete a node mid-graph? Yes — select and press delete. The lines reconnect to whatever node was upstream.

What if my workflow gets stuck on a wait_delay? The run sits in waiting state until the delay elapses. You can manually cancel from the runs page if needed.

Next steps

• Triggers — what fires the workflow.
• Multi-step & delays — sequence actions over time.
• Monitoring runs — debug failures.