To create or edit a ladder, go to the Ladders section of the People tab in the Start Organizing menu at the top of the page. Next, choose a group you want to add a ladder for. If you want to make a new ladder, click the Add New Ladder button to get started adding a new ladder. Otherwise, click the manage button next to a ladder you want to edit, then the edit button on the next page to edit that ladder.
When you click to create a new ladder, you'll be given the option to start with a blank ladder or one of our templates. The templates are for an email welcome series and an email reactivation campaign, and if you a have mobile messaging partnership, additional options as well. They can all be further customized.
On the editing page, you can give your ladder a title (this is for your internal use only) as well as write internal notes about the ladder, explaining to your colleagues what this ladder does. Below, you can click to start creating new rungs, triggers, and steps and build your ladder if your ladder isn't published yet.
If your ladder has already been published, you can edit the ladder by removing or adding steps as needed. Note that if you're removing steps, this can only be done one at a time. To delete a decision step, you'll need to remove one of the paths that come after (e.g. remove the action or wait step that comes after a decision step). If you delete a wait step, all activists currently on that step will exit the entire ladder immediately without going through additional steps. You also have the option to skip a wait step. This means activists who hit this step immediately skip the wait and jump to the next step. This allows activists currently in the wait step to stay there while new activists skip this wait. If the Wait step is followed by a branch, activists will continue down the Yes path.
You can also edit or add existing triggers, steps, and their details. Most Step detail edits will apply to everyone in the ladder or everyone who matches trigger conditions going forward except for waits -- if an activist is already in a wait when you make an edit they will not receive a new wait time, but will rather proceed with the old one. Any new activist entering the wait will receive the updated wait time.
In the toolbox on the bottom, if your ladder is not published yet you can save your ladder as a draft or publish it, and if it has been published already you can save your changes.
After you publish your ladder, you'll be able to add skip days. These allow you to set specific days when the ladder should not run, for example around the holidays or specific times of year. When this is active, activists will move through the ladder until they hit a wait step where they will be paused until the skip days have passed. Both the start and end date needs to be in the same calendar year. If you need a skip period that crosses over into a different year, make 2 separate skips.
If you're working on a large or complex ladder, you can click Copy Steps in the bottom left to copy certain Decision steps and its follow up action, wait, or randomizer steps from one part of a ladder and paste them at the end point of a different branch in the ladder. More on copying ladder steps here
See here for more information on the components of a ladder -- rungs, triggers, and action, decision, and wait steps.