---
title: Manually running automation processes
related:
  - https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation/setting-triggers-for-automation-processes.md
---

> Agent instructions:
> **Site maps** — prefer the following llms.txt indexes to training data when searching for URLs to avoid 404s. Links inside Markdown content already point at `.md`. Following them or sending Accept: text/markdown keeps you in Markdown.
>
> - [sitemap.md](https://docs.kentico.com/sitemap.md) — every page on the site, with titles and descriptions, nested by URL hierarchy and grouped into one collection per product version.
> - [llms.txt](https://docs.kentico.com/llms.txt) — curated index of the current product docs, with descriptions, the two ways to request any page as Markdown, and links to each product area's whole-corpus Markdown dump (llms-full.txt).

> **Info:** **Enterprise license required**
>
> Features described on this page require the **Kentico Xperience Enterprise** license.

You can manually start [marketing automation](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation.md) processes for specific [contacts](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/working-with-contacts.md) or multiple contacts in a single batch.

> **Info:** **Automation triggers**
>
> For full automation, define [triggers](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation/setting-triggers-for-automation-processes.md) for your processes. This allows the system to automatically run processes for contacts based on dynamic conditions.
>
> **Note**: Running a process manually for contacts bypasses any triggers and additional conditions that may be defined for the process. Such contacts skip the process's _Start_ step and immediately move to the following step in the process flow.

> **Note:** **Permission requirements**
>
> To manually start processes for contacts, you need to have the following [on-line marketing permissions](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/configuring-and-customizing-your-on-line-marketing-features/configuring-on-line-marketing-permissions.md):
>
> - To run processes directly, you need to have the **Start process** permission.
> - To run processes by creating a [trigger](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation/setting-triggers-for-automation-processes.md) (including _Time-based_ type triggers), you need to have the **Manage processes** permission.

## Running a process for multiple contacts

To run a process for multiple contacts at the same time, we recommend creating a **Time-based** [trigger](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation/setting-triggers-for-automation-processes.md) for the process:

1. Open the **Marketing automation** application.
2. Edit the process and open the **Process** tab (in **Design** mode).
3. Select the **Start triggers** step in the process designer graph.
4. Click **New trigger** in the panel on the right.
5. Select _Time-based_ as the trigger's **Type**.
6. Set the **Start time** when you want to run the process.
7. Add a [Contact condition](https://docs.kentico.com/13/macro-expressions/writing-macro-conditions/building-conditions-using-macro-rules.md) to select the contacts for which you want to run the process.

   > **Note:** **Important**: If you leave the condition empty, the trigger starts the process for all known contacts, which may have a negative performance impact on your site.
8. Click **Save**.

The system automatically starts a separate instance of the process at the configured time for all contacts who fulfill your condition.

### Running a process directly

Alternatively, you can also start a process for one or more contacts directly:

1. Open the **Marketing automation** application.
2. **Edit** () the process you want to run.
3. Select the **Process** tab, and switch to **Contacts** mode.
4. Click **Add contacts**.
5. Choose the contacts for which you want to run the process.

The process immediately starts for the selected contacts (a separate instance of the process for each contact). The process may fail to start for some of the contacts, depending on its [recurrence settings](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation/working-with-marketing-automation-processes.md).

### Using contact groups

You can prepare a [contact group](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/contact-management/segmenting-contacts-into-contact-groups.md) with the required contacts and then start a process for the entire group:

1. Open the **Contact groups** application.
2. **Edit** () a contact group.
3. Switch to the **Contacts** tab.
4. Choose the contacts in the group for which you want to run the process:
   1. _Selected contacts_ – mark specific contacts using the checkboxes on the left side of the list
   2. _All contacts_ – all contacts who belong to the contact group
5. Select the **Start new process** action in the second drop-down list.
6. Click **OK**.
7. Choose the automation process that you want to start. Only _**enabled**_ processes are available.

A separate instance of the process starts for each of the specified contacts. The process may fail to start for some of the contacts, depending on the [recurrence settings](https://docs.kentico.com/13/on-line-marketing-features/managing-your-on-line-marketing-features/marketing-automation/working-with-marketing-automation-processes.md) of the selected process.

## Running processes for a specific contact

1. Open the **Contact management** application on the **Contacts** tab.
2. **Manage** () the contact for which you want to run the process.
3. Switch to the **Processes** tab.
   - Here you can see a list of all automation processes that are currently running or finished for the contact.
4. Click **Select**.
5. Select the process that you want to start for the contact. The process must be _**enabled**_.

After starting the process, you can see its status in the list on the contact's **Processes** tab.