I have seen this in a lot of automation apps and it's really a pain to deal with...so maybe Zoho can be one of the companies that do this the good way!  : )

When sending a series of emails, so many email automations apps give you delay choices based upon when the entire sequence begins.  For example: "x days after add to list", or "y days from start of course", or "z days from the first whatever".  This always requires the initial trigger to be referenced.

This is not the best way to do it, and it does cause problems.....

CASE USE:

Let's say I'm using an autoresponder sequence to send out a weekly newsletter.  I have 52 of these in queue and ready to go.  Everyone on my list starts at the beginning and receives one email a week for a year.  Once they reach the end....cycle them back through. 

Every quarter, I remove emails that aren't performing and create new ones.  I don't want to put the new one where the old one used to be - I want everyone to receive it so I append it to the end of the sequence.  

Now there is a gap in the middle from where I deleted the old one and so now I have to change the "send after x days" on ALL the subsequent emails.  

BUT.....if the options were based upon "x mins/hours/days/week/ from the previous email"....NOW you have something that works well.

With an option based on previous email in the sequence, you can add or delete an email anywhere in the sequence without missing a beat.   The sequence would just continue on as normal.  


Thanks for your consideration