How to Automate Copper

A client's emails and meetings land on its Copper record from Gmail

Copper, which began life as ProsperWorks, is a CRM for small and mid-sized service businesses whose work with a client starts in an email thread and runs for months: agencies, consultancies, commercial production companies, construction firms, financial advisers. It lives in Google Workspace. Emails, calendar events and files log against the person and the deal without anyone filing them, and the Chrome extension shows the record in a panel beside Gmail, Calendar, Meet and LinkedIn, so an account lead can move an opportunity or set a task without leaving the inbox.

Next to the sales pipeline, Copper keeps project pipelines for delivery, from the Basic plan up. A won opportunity becomes a project with its own stages and tasks, linked back to the deal it came from, and the account team that pitched the work follows it through delivery and on to the renewal.

Purchase orders and timesheets reach the Copper record by hand

Before an agency books a kickoff, the account director signs in to the client's supplier portal, looks for the purchase order and, once it is issued, types the PO number into the opportunity. On Fridays the project manager totals the week's hours from the time tracker and sets them against each retainer to see which accounts are running over.

On the new-business side, a tender re-issued on a procurement site with a new deadline changes the opportunity only if the new-business lead happens to look. At a commercial production company, the producer opens the crew booking system before each client call and retypes who is confirmed into the opportunity's notes. Copper meanwhile shows a won deal with no PO number, and a retainer that looks healthy until the month closes.

Copper's automations fire on changes to Copper records

Task automation, from the Basic plan, creates a task when something happens in Copper, such as a contact being created, a stage changing or a record going untouched for the number of days you choose. Workflow automation, from Professional, creates or updates any Copper record, projects included, when a record is created or a field changes, or on a once-a-day check, so a won opportunity can open its own project in the delivery pipeline. Emails go out only through email automation: single emails on Professional, series on Business.

Native integrations, on Professional and Business, bring other systems onto the record. QuickBooks Online invoices appear in the Related section with their status and balance, Zendesk tickets show on the related records, and Mailchimp adds each contact's sends, opens and clicks once a day. On every plan, Zapier connects Copper to more than 5,000 other apps. In the Feed, the Keep Things Moving list points to emails awaiting a reply and meetings to prepare for.

The purchase order sits on the client's supplier portal until the account director signs in and reads it, and the crew list sits in the booking system until the producer does.

The kickoff task waits for the client's purchase order

On a won opportunity, custom fields carry the PO number and its status from the client's supplier portal, as of that morning, and the kickoff task appears on the project the day the PO shows as issued. Each retainer project shows the month's hours from the time tracker beside the agreed total, refreshed every Friday. An account running over gets a task for the account director in the second week of the month, before the overrun reaches the invoice.

The producer opens the opportunity before a client call and reads who is confirmed, copied from the crew booking system that morning. A tender re-issued with a new deadline moves the close date on the opportunity it belongs to, and the new-business lead sees the change in that opportunity's activity.

A construction firm bidding on public work can keep each addendum the owner posts to the bid portal listed on the opportunity, so the estimator prices the current drawings.

Supplier portals and timesheets can feed Copper's custom fields

Keeping those custom fields current takes a sign-in to the client's supplier portal every morning and to the time tracker every Friday. WebRun is an AI agent that works a real Chrome browser, signed in as you; it makes both visits, picks up the crew list from the booking system, and updates the opportunity's custom fields and the project's tasks to match.

A check-in email to a quiet client stays in the account lead's Gmail drafts, unsent. The Gmail thread itself is left to Copper's own sync, which logs it already.

Of the Copper jobs ready to run, one gives each won opportunity a Drive folder and a kickoff card; the others draft check-ins to contacts gone quiet and text a deal's owner when a large deal stalls.