Everything, in depth.
The Support page gets you unstuck fast. These guides go deeper: what each setting really does, how Stage Sync thinks, and how to read the Activity log when something looks off.
1. Quick start
- Install and sign in. Add the extension to Chrome, pin it, open the popup, and create your account. The free plan (10 emails/day) starts immediately — no card.
- Write your templates. In Settings → Templates, write the email (and optional text) you'd send by hand. Use
{name},{company}, and{amount}and Ervona personalizes each send from the record. - Set your pace. In Settings → Engine rules, pick a batch limit, delays, and a daily stop time. Leave Dry run on for your first pass — it fills the draft but never clicks Send.
- Point it at a list. Open a list in your CRM (Leads, Contacts, or Opportunities) — split view, table, or kanban — and press Start Batch. Watch a record or two in Dry run, then switch it off and go live.
- Let the AI cover replies. On Growth and Scale, connect your inbox in Settings → Reply and a named assistant answers inbound leads — as drafts you approve, or automatically while you're away.
2. Working a list
Start Batch works two kinds of view:
- Split view — the list stays docked on the left while each record opens on the right. Click a record, press Start Batch, and Ervona walks the docked list from there in the direction you chose (Up or Down).
- Table or kanban view — no docked list needed. Press Start Batch on the list itself (no record open) and Ervona collects every record on the view up front, then opens and works each one by URL.
- Send One handles just the record you're on — good for testing and one-offs.
- Start from (table/kanban views) begins the run at a specific record: paste an email to pinpoint one lead, or a company name — if several rows match, the first one wins.
- Pause / Skip / Stop are always live during a run. Skipping a record never marks it as pitched.
- Each record gets up to four actions in one pass: email, text, activity note, and a status advance. If a step fails partway, the retry re-runs only what's missing — nobody gets the same email twice.
Duplicate protection: records pitched within your skip window (default 14 days) are skipped automatically. If your one test record "does nothing", that's usually why — check the Activity log in the popup, it says exactly what it skipped and why.
3. Templates & merge fields
Templates live in Settings → Templates and sync between the website and the extension. Each has an email subject (plus an optional subject B for A/B rotation), a rich-text email body, and a text-message body.
- Merge fields:
{name},{company},{amount}fill from the record at send time. A missing or junk first name always collapses{name}to a "there" greeting — nobody gets "Hi ,". With Name guard on, batch runs skip those lead records entirely instead. - The active template is what a normal run sends.
- Sequences by attempt (Leads): in the extension's Templates tab, switch on Per-attempt templates and map each attempt value to a template — 1st Attempt → your first touch, 2nd Attempt → your follow-up, and so on. On each lead the agent reads the Status Detail field and sends the mapped template; attempts you leave unmapped fall back to the active one. Pair it with Stage Sync and the whole sequence runs itself: each send advances the status, so the next pass automatically sends the next email.
4. Engine rules, explained
Every rule syncs from the website to the extension automatically. What each one actually does:
| Rule | What it does |
|---|---|
| Batch limit | The batch stops itself after this many records (1–200). Size it to what you'd realistically work in a sitting; you can always start another batch. |
| Min / max delay | Ervona waits a random number of seconds in this range between records, so sends pace like a person, not a script. Wider range = more natural. |
| Skip if contacted within (days) | Duplicate protection. Any record pitched inside the window is skipped. 0 turns it off. |
| Daily stop time | A hard stop for the day (e.g. 17:30) — the batch ends there even if the limit isn't reached. |
| Dry run | Fills the email (or text) so you can check the draft — but never clicks Send, and never writes a note. The safe way to verify a new setup. |
| Confirm each send | Shows a preview overlay before every record. Slower, but total control. |
| Name guard | Catches missing or suspicious first names before they land in a greeting. |
| A/B subjects | Rotates subject A and subject B so your reports can tell you which one earns replies. |
| Log a note | Adds an activity note to the record after each send — your paper trail in the CRM. On by default. |
| Compliance skips | Not a setting — always on. Records flagged Do Not Contact / Opted Out, and addresses that bounced, are never emailed. |
5. Stage Sync, step by step
Stage Sync (Growth & Scale) keeps your pipeline honest: after every confirmed send it steps the lead's status field one value forward, and when the inbound agent spots a milestone — like an application going out — it queues that stage change for one-click apply in the popup.
The two fields, and why there are two
For Leads, Stage Sync involves two different picklists:
- The field it advances (e.g.
Status Detail) — the attempt counter Ervona steps forward: 1st Attempt → 2nd Attempt → … - The gate field (
Lead Status) — a field Ervona only reads, never edits. While it still equals your gate value (e.g. "Open - Not Contacted"), the agent owns the lead and keeps advancing. The moment a human moves the lead past that status, Ervona stops touching it. That's the safety: your reps' judgment always outranks the machine.
Opportunities are simpler — the Stage is the field, so there's no separate gate. Ervona only advances a stage that appears in your order, so an opportunity past your last step is left alone.
Setting it up
| Setting | Example | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Status field to advance | Status Detail | The field's label, not a value — exactly as it appears next to the edit pencil on the record. |
| Advance order | 1st Attempt → 2nd Attempt → … → 6th Attempt | Copy each value letter for letter from the dropdown ("1st Attempt", not "1st"). A value that doesn't match is never advanced. |
| Only advance while Lead Status is | Open - Not Contacted | Your org's "still being worked" status, spelled exactly. |
Exact spelling is the whole game. Stage Sync matches values character for character, on purpose: if a name doesn't match your CRM, it logs it and skips rather than guessing — so a typo can never move a lead somewhere wrong. If your advance "does nothing", a spelling mismatch is the first thing to check.
Reading the Activity log
Lead Status (gate) = "…"— what the gate read. If it's not your gate value, a human owns that lead and skipping is correct behavior.cannot advance from "…" (not in the mapped order…)— the record's current value isn't in your list, or it's already at the last step. Check the spelling of that value in your order.Edit pencil not found— the field label doesn't match a field on the record's Details tab. Check the "Status field to advance" spelling.Status Detail: 1st Attempt → 2nd Attempt— a successful advance, saved.
Check your starting point: Stage Sync only moves values that appear in your order. If brand-new leads start with an empty status field, give the field a default value in your CRM (or include your org's starting value as step 1) so the first send has somewhere to step from.
6. Texting
- SMS runs on Growth and Scale. On Free and Solo the agent runs email-only regardless of the toggle.
- With "Send a text after each email" on, each record gets the email first, then the text from the same template, in one pass.
- Text-only campaigns run at 1.5× your email cap (e.g. 1,500 texts/day on Growth).
- Ervona drives your org's texting widget on the record page. If yours isn't detected automatically, activate the Texting module in Settings → CRM — a "Map texting" card then appears in the extension console on your CRM, and mapping it takes about 20 seconds.
- The engine verifies the message actually landed in the widget before it clicks Send, and tells you in the Activity log if it couldn't.
7. Ervona Reply
Reply (beta, Growth & Scale) answers your own inbound email with a named AI assistant grounded in the business profile you save.
- Connect your inbox in Settings → Reply. Replies come from your own address.
- Draft or Auto: Draft mode leaves every reply waiting in your Drafts for approval. Auto sends directly — most people run Draft first, then switch on Auto for away windows.
- Persona & disclosure: replies sign as a named assistant ("Ava · AI assistant") by default. Keep the AI disclosure on — some regulated sales require it, and it builds trust either way.
- Partners & colleagues: list partner domains to get warm, collaborative replies (never a pitch). Internal mail is ignored unless you opt in — and colleague replies are always drafts.
- Milestones: when Reply spots an application going out, it can queue a stage change for one-click apply — see Stage Sync.
8. Reports & analytics
- Every run ends with a per-lead report — branded PDF or Excel, stamped to your account — that you can hand a manager as-is.
- Email tracking (on by default) logs each send plus its open and reply, which powers reply rates by subject and template. Opens are directional — pixel blocking is common — so treat replies as the reliable number.
- Your analytics are private to your account, never sold or shared, and deletable anytime in Settings → Engine rules → Email analytics.
9. Troubleshooting
The fix didn't take / the popup acts stale
After an extension update, the page-side script in an already-open CRM tab keeps running the old version. Hard-reload the CRM tab itself (not just the extension) and try again. If the popup shows a "reload" banner, that's the same thing — click it.
The popup says "not on your CRM"
You're on a different tab, or the CRM tab loaded before the extension did. Switch to the CRM tab; if the badge stays gray on a CRM page, reload that tab once.
Start Batch doesn't seem to do anything
Batch needs either a split-view list with a record clicked, or a table/kanban view (started from the list itself — Ervona collects the records and opens each by URL). If it reports finding no record links on a table, hard-reload the CRM tab. And check the Activity log: if your test record was recently pitched, duplicate protection skipped it on purpose.
Everything fills but nothing sends
Dry run is on (Engine rules → Sending), or you've hit your plan's daily cap — the popup counter shows where you stand.
The status didn't advance
In order of likelihood: the gate — a human (or your org's automation) moved Lead Status past your gate value, so Ervona correctly left it alone; a spelling mismatch in the advance order or field label; or the record's current value isn't in your order at all. The Stage Sync log lines name the exact reason.
The text didn't send
Check the Activity log first — the engine now verifies the message bound to the widget and says so if it didn't. If your org's widget changed, re-map the Texting module (Settings → CRM) — it takes ~20 seconds.
Still stuck?
Email us with your account email and, for a bug, what you did and what the Activity log said — that log line usually pinpoints it in one look.