what do followup funnels do?

Hi, I’m looking at followup funnels for the first time and trying to understand how they are intended to work. Our group is interested in creating a process around following up with new folks who have signed up for the first time, and possibly doing periodic check-ins with existing members, maybe after six months or a year.

First, it looks like assigning people to a funnel is a manual process that the admin has to do. Is that correct? For example, when a new person signs up, the system creates a directory record for them, and I would like to have them go into the “welcome” funnel automatically. But it looks like an admin needs to go into the People module and assign them to the funnel (and to a specific person to do the followup) by hand, for each person. Am I understanding that correctly? I’d much rather have this be an automated process, since I can’t think of a situation when I wouldn’t want it to happen.

It also looks like there is another manual step where the admin needs to click to send an email to the person assigned to do the followup to let them know. Is this always manual, or will an email eventually get sent to let them know and/or remind them of the followup?

Second, what actually gets recorded with the followup? It looks like the only option is to record it as “completed.” I think for a “welcome” funnel this makes sense, but in the tutorial online the funnel takes members through joining a small group, attending a newcomers’ session, etc. It seems like there is something missing here. What happens if the followup is to invite them to a small group, for example, but they decline? Would we leave the followup active, with the intent that we could ask again in a month to see if they are ready yet? or would we mark it as complete and then somehow remember a month later to open a new followup to invite them again? And if they do accept the invitation, would they get assigned to the next step in the followup or is that a manual process as well?

I guess I am thinking of this process as some email marketing funnels I’ve seen where prospects are given one action item at a time and when they complete that action they are pushed to the next, but if they don’t complete it then they stall out of the funnel. These followups must be designed differently but I’m not sure how to conceptualize the process.

Thanks in advance for the help understanding this.