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npsp-engagement-plans

Use this skill when configuring, applying, or troubleshooting NPSP Engagement Plans — the framework that automatically generates standard Salesforce Task records on a timed schedule to guide donor stewardship and constituent outreach. Trigger keywords: engagement plan, donor stewardship tasks, NPSP task automation, engagement template, major donor follow-up. NOT for designing the cultivation and stewardship stages — use admin/fundraising-process-mapping. NOT for recording and receipting gifts — use admin/gift-entry-and-processing.

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NPSP Engagement Plans

This skill activates when a practitioner needs to design, configure, or troubleshoot the NPSP Engagement Plans feature — a structured way to automatically generate Salesforce Task records on a timed schedule tied to a target record (Contact, Account, Opportunity, Campaign, Case, or Recurring Donation). It covers the three-object data model, template deployment constraints, retroactivity rules, child task due-date behavior, and when to layer Flow on top for actions beyond Task creation.

Before Starting

Gather this context before working on anything in this domain:

Questions to Ask Before Configuring

QuestionWhy it mattersWhat a good answer addsWhat proper configuration adds over just doing it
Which record should each plan hang off: Contact, Account, Opportunity, Campaign, Case, Recurring Donation, or a custom object?A plan must have exactly one target lookup populated, and the target cannot be changed after insert (EP_EngagementPlans_TDTM in the NPSP source).The lookup field to populate on npsp__Engagement_Plan__c, and whether a custom lookup field has to be added first.The plan is created on the right record the first time, so nobody has to delete and recreate plans to move them.
Should a follow-up task wait for an earlier task to be closed, and should its due date move when that happens?Dependent tasks are created up front with status Waiting on Dependent Task; their due date only recalculates when the template's Automatically Update Child Task Due Date box is checked (EP_Task_UTIL).A parent/child map of template tasks plus a yes/no on the auto-update checkbox.Coordinators see waiting tasks as waiting, and due dates reflect real completion instead of the original guess.
Who owns each task when the template row leaves Assigned To blank?Blank assignees fall back to the template's Default Assignee picklist: the target record's owner or the user who created the plan.A named user per task, or an explicit Default Assignee choice.Tasks land with the gift officer who owns the donor, not with whichever admin or integration user applied the plan.
Do weekend due dates matter, and if so should they move to Friday or Monday?Skip Weekends defaults to true and Reschedule To decides the direction (Engagement_Plan_Template__c field definitions).A decision recorded on each template.Stewardship calls stop landing on Saturdays, and the date shift is predictable.
Will the template change after plans are live, and how will in-flight plans be handled?Existing Tasks keep their subject and date, but the plan Status formula and waiting child tasks read the current template rows.A change policy: edit in place, clone a new template, or delete and reapply plans.Template revisions do not silently leave old plans stuck at In Progress.
How will templates move from sandbox to production?Templates and template tasks are data records, not metadata.A data migration plan (Data Loader or sf data import tree) with the parent-child mapping.Go-live has the same templates that were tested, with the same parent task links.

Core Concepts

Three-Object Data Model

NPSP Engagement Plans use three sObjects:

  1. npsp__Engagement_Plan_Template__c — The master template. Contains configuration such as name, description, Skip Weekends, Reschedule To, Default Assignee, and Automatically Update Child Task Due Date. The template has no target-object field. The target object is decided on each plan by which lookup is populated. This is what admins build and manage.
  2. npsp__Engagement_Plan__c — The instance created when a template is applied to a specific record. It acts as the junction between the template and the target record (Contact, Opportunity, etc.) and holds the applied-on date from which task due dates are calculated.
  3. npsp__Engagement_Plan_Task__c — Individual task definitions within a template (Name as the subject, Days_After__c, Parent_Task__c, Assigned_To__c user lookup, Priority, Type, Status, Reminder, Send Email). They are master-detail children of the template, not of the plan instance, so every plan built from a template shares the same template task rows. When the plan is applied, NPSP creates one standard Salesforce Task record per npsp__Engagement_Plan_Task__c.

Engagement Plans create standard Task records only. They do not send emails to constituents, update fields, post to Chatter, or trigger other automation by themselves. The one email they can send is the standard task notification to the assignee, controlled by the Send Email checkbox on each template task.

Templates Are Data, Not Metadata

Engagement Plan Templates are stored as standard data records in npsp__Engagement_Plan_Template__c, not as Salesforce metadata components. This means:

Template Changes Are Not Retroactive

Editing a template does not rewrite Tasks that were already created. Subjects, owners, and due dates on existing Tasks stay as they were at application time. Two things do read the live template, though. The plan's Status formula compares Completed Tasks to Total_EP_Tasks__c, which is a formula on the template's current task count. Dependent Tasks that are still waiting pick up the template task's current Status, Days After, Reminder, and Send Email values when their parent closes. To roll out a revised template cleanly to existing records, delete the old plan instance and reapply the updated template, or clone the template instead of editing it.

Auto-Update Child Due Date Behavior

When a task hierarchy is configured (one npsp__Engagement_Plan_Task__c depends on a parent task), NPSP can recalculate child task due dates relative to the parent. The recalculation runs when the parent Task becomes closed (its IsClosed flag flips to true), which covers any Task status marked as closed, not only "Completed". It does NOT run when the parent task's due date is manually edited. Practitioners who drag a parent task's due date in the calendar and expect child tasks to shift are surprised when nothing moves.

Common Patterns

Major Donor Stewardship Cadence

When to use: A fundraising team wants every new major donor (Opportunity stage = Closed Won above a threshold) to receive a consistent 30/60/90-day stewardship task sequence.

How it works:

  1. Build a template with three npsp__Engagement_Plan_Task__c records: Day 30 thank-you call, Day 60 impact report delivery, Day 90 cultivation meeting.
  2. Create a Flow (Record-Triggered, after-save) on Opportunity that fires when Amount ≥ threshold and Stage = "Closed Won". The Flow applies the engagement plan by creating an npsp__Engagement_Plan__c record with a lookup to the Opportunity and the template.
  3. NPSP generates the three Task records with due dates calculated from the plan's creation date.

Why not the alternative: Manually creating tasks per donor per close is error-prone, inconsistent, and not auditable at the template level. Engagement Plans enforce the same sequence every time.

Extending to Non-Task Actions with Flow

When to use: The stewardship cadence requires an automated email send or a field update in addition to creating Tasks.

How it works:

  1. Build the Engagement Plan template for the Task creation part of the cadence.
  2. Build a separate scheduled-path Flow (or a Process Builder replacement using Flow) that fires on the same record and same timing offset to handle the non-Task action (e.g., send an email alert, stamp a "Last Outreach Date" field).
  3. The two automations run independently but together cover the full cadence.

Why not the alternative: Practitioners sometimes expect Engagement Plans to handle email sends directly. They do not — attempting to add email logic to the NPSP template configuration will fail silently or produce no result.

Decision Guidance

SituationRecommended ApproachReason
Need timed Task reminders for donor stewardshipEngagement Plan TemplateNative NPSP feature; auditable; no code
Need to deploy templates to productionManual data migration or Data LoaderTemplates are data records, not metadata
Need to update all in-flight plans after template changeDelete existing plan instances, reapply updated templateChanges are not retroactive
Need email sends as part of the cadenceAdd a scheduled Flow alongside the engagement planEngagement Plans produce Tasks only
Need engagement plans on a custom objectEnable Activities on the object; add lookup to npsp__Engagement_Plan__cRequired to associate plans with custom records
Child tasks not shifting when parent date changesClose the parent Task (any closed status) to trigger recalculationAuto-Update fires when the parent closes, not on a date edit

Step-by-step instructions for an AI agent or practitioner working on this task:

  1. Verify prerequisites — Confirm NPSP is installed, the three Engagement Plan objects are present, and the target object has Activities enabled. For custom objects, add the lookup field to npsp__Engagement_Plan__c before proceeding.
  2. Design the template — Define the task sequence: subject lines, days offset from plan application date, assigned-to user or queue, and any parent-child dependencies. Document the design in the work template before building to avoid schema errors.
  3. Build the template in the target org — Navigate to NPSP Settings > Engagement Plans (or use the Engagement Plan Templates tab) to create the npsp__Engagement_Plan_Template__c record and its child npsp__Engagement_Plan_Task__c records. If this is a sandbox, plan for manual recreation or Data Loader migration to production.
  4. Apply and verify — Apply the template to a test record (manually or via Flow). Confirm that one standard Task record is created per engagement plan task, due dates are correct, and the npsp__Engagement_Plan__c instance links correctly to the target record.
  5. Validate edge cases — Test the Auto-Update Child Due Date feature by closing the parent Task and confirming child task due dates recalculate and the child status leaves Waiting on Dependent Task. Confirm that editing the parent task's due date directly does NOT shift children. Document and communicate this behavior to the team. The deployable Flow and data plan for the apply step are in references/metadata-examples.md.

Review Checklist

Run through these before marking work in this area complete:

Salesforce-Specific Gotchas

Non-obvious platform behaviors that cause real production problems:

  1. Templates Cannot Be Deployed via Change Set — Because npsp__Engagement_Plan_Template__c records are data, not metadata components, they are invisible to Change Sets and the Metadata API. Admins who build templates in sandbox and then run a Change Set to production will find the templates missing. The fix is manual recreation in each org or a Data Loader export/import.
  2. Template Edits Have No Effect on Active Plans — Modifying a template after it has been applied to records does not update those plan instances or regenerate tasks. The only way to apply changes to existing records is to delete the npsp__Engagement_Plan__c instance and reapply the updated template, which may regenerate already-completed tasks if not filtered.
  3. Auto-Update Child Due Date Requires Task Closure, Not Date Edit: The child task due-date cascade runs when the parent Task closes. Manually editing the parent task's due date field does not trigger any recalculation.
  4. Plan Status reads the live template task count: Adding a task to a template leaves older plans unable to reach Completed. See references/gotchas.md for this and five more traps.

Output Artifacts

ArtifactDescription
npsp__Engagement_Plan_Template__c recordMaster template defining the task cadence; must be manually migrated between orgs
npsp__Engagement_Plan_Task__c recordsChild task definitions within the template; one per planned task
npsp__Engagement_Plan__c instanceApplied plan record linking the template to a specific target record
Standard Task recordsThe actual activity records created for users to act on; one per engagement plan task
Flow (optional)Separate automation for non-Task actions (emails, field updates) triggered on the same record

Package files