---
title: Configure an employee property trigger
description: Start an automation from any date, text or yes/no property on the employee record, including custom fields synced from your HRIS.
sidebar:
  order: 2
area: flows
feature: automations
appPath: /flows/home
lastVerified: 2026-10-22
version: "2026-10-16"
audience: admin
related:
  - flows/automations/configure-a-date-trigger
  - directory/employees
  - flows/automations/trigger-catalogue
intercom:
  - id: "11987518"
    title: Select the Right Trigger for your Flow (Pyn 2)
    url: https://intercom.help/pyn/en/articles/11987518-select-the-right-trigger-for-your-flow-pyn-2
    note: draws on
  - id: "12651319"
    title: Using Triggers in Pyn (Pyn 2)
    url: https://intercom.help/pyn/en/articles/12651319-using-triggers-in-pyn-pyn-2
    note: draws on
---

The **Employee Properties** category turns any suitable field on the employee record into a trigger. A date property such as **Probation End Date** or **Tenure Date** becomes a date trigger with the same offsets and recurrence as Start Date. A text property fires when its value matches text you enter; a yes/no property fires when it becomes true.

## Before you start

- Check that the property is populated. Open an employee in [Directory](https://support.pynhq.com/directory/employees/) and look for the field. Properties come from your HRIS mapping, the Employee File or a form that writes to the record.
- For a text match, know the exact value. The comparison is against the stored value, so "Contractor" and "contractor" are different.

## Steps

1. In Pyn, open **Flows** in the left navigation, then **Automations**, and select **Create New**.

2. Choose **Employee Properties** on the left. Under **Select a Property**, open the list. It shows every date, text and yes/no property in alphabetical order.

![Employee Properties turns any date, text or yes/no field into a trigger.](https://support.pynhq.com/media/flows/automations/flows-automations-property-trigger.png)

3. Select the property. For a text property a **Value** field appears, hinting "Enter the value to match"; type the value.

4. Select **Done**.

5. For a date property, the drawer's **Configure** tab offers **This flow starts** and the recurrence list exactly as for Start Date; follow [Configure a date trigger](https://support.pynhq.com/flows/automations/configure-a-date-trigger/). For a text or yes/no property, the tab reads "Triggered using property:" followed by the property name and there is nothing more to set.

6. Set the **Audience**, add steps and select **Publish**.

> **Caution:** Birthday appears in this list as a text property, because it is stored as `MM-DD`. Picking it here makes a flow that fires only for people whose birthday equals the text you type. For a yearly birthday flow use the **Birthday celebration** template instead; see [Birthdays and anniversaries](https://support.pynhq.com/flows/automations/tutorial-birthdays-and-anniversaries/).

## What you should see

Property triggers are evaluated on every HRIS refresh and on the six-hourly background pass. When a record matches, the employee appears under [Enrollments](https://support.pynhq.com/activity/enrollments/); for a text or yes/no match the reference date is the day of the match in the employee's time zone. Text and yes/no triggers default to **Never reenroll**, so a correction that flips the value away and back does not enrol the person twice.

## Related

- [Configure a date trigger](https://support.pynhq.com/flows/automations/configure-a-date-trigger/) for the offset and recurrence settings a date property gets.
- [Employees](https://support.pynhq.com/directory/employees/) to see which properties your records carry.
- [Trigger catalogue](https://support.pynhq.com/flows/automations/trigger-catalogue/) for defaults.

## Related Intercom articles

- [Select the Right Trigger for your Flow (Pyn 2)](https://intercom.help/pyn/en/articles/11987518-select-the-right-trigger-for-your-flow-pyn-2) — draws on
- [Using Triggers in Pyn (Pyn 2)](https://intercom.help/pyn/en/articles/12651319-using-triggers-in-pyn-pyn-2) — draws on