Use the Start someone else in a flow action to place a separate contact or group in a flow when a contact reaches this step.

In the example below, we're starting fathers - referenced using the contact variable @contact.spouse - in the "Questions for Dads" flow when the expecting mothers reach the second step of the "Registration" flow.

Creating a New Contact


This action can also be used to create a new contact through the flow it starts.

In the example flow below, Register Patient, contacts are being asked to submit the names and phone numbers of the patient's they're registering. Once that information is collected, the Start Someone in a Flow action triggers a new flow, Create New Patient, that will create a contact whose default fields, Name and Phone, are populated using an Update the Contact action with the flow variables (@flow.name & @flow.phone) collected in the previous flow, Register Patient.

The first flow collects the patient's information, while the second flow updates it and creates a contact profile for the patient.

Register Patient

The name and phone number of the new contact is collected, then the new contact's phone number is started down the "Create Contact" flow.

Create New Patient

Once the new contact's phone number starts the "Create Contact" flow, they'll be added to your contacts tab. You'll just need to update their Full Name field to complete their profile. You can do so using an Update the Contact action that places the name collected in the previous flow (referenced using the @parent.name variable; all flow variables from the previous flow can be called by placing "@parent" in front of the variable name) in the new contact's Full Name field.

Using @new_contact

Say you'd like a single contact - an expecting mother, for example - to receive reminders pertaining to her pregnancy as well as reminders pertaining to the medical care of her other children. The key is to create separate profiles for each child, all containing the mother's phone number, so that she can receive campaign events for each of her children.

Creating Additional Contacts

First, you'll need to start the mother in a flow that collects relevant information about each child, so that each flow run will result in the creation of a new child:

After you've collected relevant information about the child, you'll use @new_contact to create a placeholder for that child's contact profile, and the Start Someone in a Flow action to start a flow that will update the new contact's field values:

Updating Each New Contact's Profile

The next flow will contain a series of Update the Contact actions that will update the values collected by the previous flow (name, gender, age) to the placeholder for the child, @new_contact:

First, you'd create a contact field for the child that will contain the mother's phone number (you can create new contact fields within the Update Contact flow action). Then, you'll populate that field with the mother's phone number using the @step.contact.tel_e164 variable. @step.contact refers to the mother - the contact who sent the previous message:

Then, you'd place the @parent variable in front of each of the values collected from the previous flow:

Once each child's contact profile is created, you can assign them their own campaign.

Sending Reminders Intended for the Child

To send reminders to the mother for her child, you'll need to create a campaign event to be sent to the child's contact profile that contains a flow that uses either the Send a Message to Someone Else or Start Someone Else in a Flow actions to message the mother. The address you'll use is the contact field containing the mother's phone number, @contact.mother_phone: