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Combined visibility and deadline rules

Combine visibility and deadline automations in Tallyfy so steps only appear when relevant - and arrive with the right due date already set.

When you’d use this

  • Shipping - International orders need customs checks with deadlines tied to arrival dates. Domestic orders skip the step entirely.
  • Contract renewals - Enterprise contracts trigger legal review 30 days before expiration. Standard contracts skip it.
  • Event planning - Catering requested? That task appears with a 14-day countdown to event day.
  • Customer onboarding - Premium customers get expedited setup steps with 24-hour turnarounds.

How to set it up

  1. Add a conditional step

    In your template, add a step that should only appear in certain situations - for example, “Check international shipment arrival.”

  2. Create the visibility rule

    Add an automation to show the step only when needed:

    IF (Shipment Type field) is "International"
    THEN Show task "Check international shipment arrival"

    Tallyfy automatically hides steps with “Show” actions until conditions are met.

  3. Add a deadline rule for the same step

    Create another automation targeting the same step:

    IF (Shipment Type field) is "International"
    THEN Set deadline for "Check international shipment arrival"
         to 7 days after (Expected Arrival Date field)

  4. Test it

    Launch a process and check:

    • Domestic shipment - the task stays hidden
    • International shipment - the task appears with a deadline 7 days after the expected arrival date

Examples

Contract renewal with type-specific deadlines

Step: “Legal review for special terms”

Visibility rule:

IF (Contract Type field) is "Custom Enterprise"
THEN Show "Legal review for special terms"

Deadline rule:

IF (Contract Type field) is "Custom Enterprise"
THEN Set deadline to 30 days before (Contract End Date field)

Enterprise contracts trigger legal review 30 days before expiration. Standard contracts skip the step entirely.

Event planning with optional services

Step: “Arrange catering service”

Visibility rule:

IF (Services Requested field) contains "Catering"
THEN Show "Arrange catering service"

Deadline rule:

IF (Services Requested field) contains "Catering"
THEN Set deadline to 14 days before (Event Date field)

No catering requested? No task. Catering needed? The task appears with a 14-day countdown.

Support escalation

Step: “Senior engineer review”

Visibility rule:

IF (Issue Priority field) is "Critical"
AND (Initial Resolution) is "Unsuccessful"
THEN Show "Senior engineer review"

Deadline rule:

IF (Issue Priority field) is "Critical"
THEN Set deadline to 2 hours after (Escalation Time field)

Critical issues that first-line support can’t resolve escalate to senior engineers with a 2-hour SLA1.

Advanced patterns

Multiple conditions on one step

You can use AND/OR logic to combine conditions. Tallyfy supports both operators:

// Visibility depends on amount AND region
IF (Purchase Amount field) is greater than $10,000
AND (Region field) is "International"
THEN Show "Export compliance check"


// Express shipping - tight deadline
IF (Shipping Method field) is "Express"
THEN Set deadline for "Export compliance check" to 1 day after process launch


// Standard shipping - more time
IF (Shipping Method field) is "Standard"
THEN Set deadline for "Export compliance check" to 3 days after process launch

Cascading deadlines

One task’s deadline can reference another task’s deadline:

// First conditional step
IF (Requires Inspection field) is "Yes"
THEN Show "Quality inspection"
AND Set deadline to (Ship Date field) minus 3 days


// Second step references first step's deadline
IF (Requires Inspection field) is "Yes"
THEN Show "Inspection report filing"
AND Set deadline to 1 day after "Quality inspection" deadline

Best practices

  • Match your conditions - If a step shows for “International” shipments, its deadline should trigger on the same condition.
  • Set default deadlines - Hidden steps should still have reasonable defaults in case someone manually shows a step.
  • Test edge cases - What happens if a date field is empty? Or a condition changes mid-process? Find out before your users do.
  • Name steps clearly - “Premium setup verification” beats “Step 3,” especially for conditional steps.

Actions > Automate hiding or showing tasks

Tallyfy’s visibility actions let you dynamically show or hide specific process steps based on conditions like form field values or task completion status so users only see relevant steps and you can enforce sequential task order by hiding steps by default and revealing them through IF-THEN automation rules.

Automations > Conditional visibility

Tallyfy lets you show or hide entire tasks in a workflow based on form field values using IF-THEN automation rules with AND/OR logic so that only relevant steps appear for each unique process path instead of maintaining separate templates for every variation.

Templates > Automations

Tallyfy automations are IF-THEN rules added to templates that automatically adapt running processes based on form field entries and task events by showing or hiding steps and assigning tasks and setting deadlines without any manual routing.

Actions > Automate deadline shifts on tasks

Tallyfy’s deadline actions let you automatically shift task due dates forward or backward based on automation rule conditions using the step’s current deadline or another step’s deadline or a form field date value while respecting your configured work week settings.

Footnotes

  1. Service Level Agreement - a contractual commitment to respond within specified time ↩

  2. Rules execute in position order. At process launch, steps with “Show” actions are hidden first, then all rule conditions are evaluated. ↩

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