How to verify your playbook's outputs

1. Test each routine

Open a routine and select Test. Cook runs it with a pretend lead. Nothing is sent to anyone.

Check:

• Words: Does it sound like the business it is being sent on behalf of? Read it out loud.
• Timing: Are the waits right? Change them and test again.
• Links: Open every one. A booking link should land on the right calendar.
• Order: Do the steps happen in the sequence you meant?

2. Activate the tested journey

There are two ways to switch the tested routines on.

• One at a time. If a routine’s test passes, switch it on from the routines list. This is what the finish screen of the setup tells you to do.
• All together, through Cook. Ask Cook to activate the installed playbook. It checks every routine, the connected senders and the routines that start other routines, then files an Activate playbook approval. Review it before the bundle switches on. A passed simulation does not prove that a disconnected email account or texting number can deliver.

Your plan can limit how many routines are switched on at once. If switching on would go over that limit, Cook says so and switches nothing on.

For appointment playbooks, the approval also hands booking-page reminders to the tested reminder routines so new bookings do not get two reminder sequences.

Once a routine is on, it runs the next time its starting event happens. It does not go back and handle anything from before you turned it on.

3. Give it something to work on

A routine that waits for new enquiries needs somewhere for enquiries to arrive from. Point one of these at it:

• a funnel — a page Cook builds with a form on it;
• a form on a website you already have;
• your contact list, if new people arrive there from somewhere else.

Until someone actually enquires, the routine sits and waits. That is not a fault.

Your first week with it running

• Read the first few real run records. They show what happened and when.
• Check the alerts reached you where you expected.
• Expect to adjust wording after you see real replies. Editing a message does not change steps that are already running.

Changing it later

You can edit a message, wait, or step at any time. New runs use the new version.

Ask Cook in chat to update the existing install. It prepares drafts, preserves your independent edits and reports conflicts for review. After testing, an approval applies the update together. Older installs without a saved baseline need individual draft review.

Do not go back through the setup screens to update a customised install. That path shows Update these routines: it rebuilds every routine from the playbook, switches every one of them off again, and replaces any changes you made in the builder.

Connecting a texting number later does not add texts to a live playbook. Ask Cook to include texting, review the added steps, then test and activate the update.

Pausing it, or getting rid of it

• Turn off one routine. No new runs start, and it stays where it is. Runs already in progress are not stopped: the routine shows Run still active while they finish. To stop a person’s run, open the routine, choose Who’s in it and press Stop on that person.
• Remove the playbook entirely. There is no button for this. Ask Cook in chat to remove it. Cook asks you to approve it first, then deletes the routines that playbook created and stops anything they had running. Nothing undoes this.

Removing a playbook does not delete its standards. Learn more in Deciding before a rule is added.