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The Workflow Builder

The Workflow Builder is where you draw a process as steps on a canvas: what starts it, what each step does, and which way a run goes after each decision. Use it when something should happen to a record over time, in a set order, with branches, waits or a person's approval along the way.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Automation:

  • Workflow Builder — the library of workflows and the canvas editor
  • Workflow Run History — every run of every workflow, its steps and why any failed
  • Approvals Inbox — the approval steps waiting for your decision

Admin Panel → Processes:

  • Approvals Inbox — the same inbox for back-office users, with buttons to the workflows they have a role on

The library

The Workflow Builder opens on a list of workflows. Six tiles summarise them: Workflows, Active, Drafts, Unpublished changes, Runs waiting (approvals, waits, signatures) and Failed runs (last 30 days).

  • Filters: Search (name, datastore or description), Status (Active, Draft, Disabled, Has unpublished changes), Starts (By hand, On a record change, On a schedule) and Show deleted.
  • Columns: Name, Starts, Works on, Status, Last run, Waiting, Failed (30 days) and Last saved. Click a name to open it; click a failed count to see those runs.
  • Buttons: Import, New from template… and New workflow. Each row also has Runs, Duplicate and Delete.

An architect sees every workflow. Someone given a role on a workflow sees only those, with a "Your role" badge; see Who Can Use a Workflow.

The editor

  1. Settings sit above the canvas: Name, Works on records in (the target datastore), Starts, and the trigger details, plus a Description.
  2. Steps on the left is the palette. Drag a step onto the canvas, or select it and press Enter. Find a step filters the list.
  3. The canvas holds the steps and the lines between their ports. Its toolbar has undo and redo, zoom, Fit, Tidy up, Map, copy and paste, and the keyboard shortcuts list.
  4. The step panel opens on the right when you select a step: its Step name, its settings and a short "how this step works".
  5. Problems and Recent runs are tabs under the canvas.

The header carries Save draft, Validate, Publish…, Disable (or Activate), Test… and More, which holds Versions…, Run history, Who can use it…, Duplicate workflow, Export as JSON, Import from JSON… and Delete workflow….

How a workflow lives

  • Draft: a new workflow is a draft. Nothing starts it on its own, but you can validate it, simulate it and test it.
  • Active: Publish makes the saved draft version 1 (then 2, 3…) and turns the workflow on. Later saves change only the draft until you publish again.
  • Disabled: nothing new starts it; runs already under way carry on.

Every run belongs to one record (a scheduled run may have none) and records each step it took, the way each step left, and why it failed if it did. See Versions and Publishing and The Run History.

When a workflow is the right tool

  • A process on one record over time: acknowledge, wait, check, escalate, ask for approval.
  • Anything with a person in it: an approval, an identity check or a signature.
  • Work on a schedule: a daily sweep that finds overdue records and acts on each.
  • Checking or shaping a save: a workflow that runs before a record is saved can set fields or refuse the save.

A recurring programme of messages to many people is a journey, whose steps are themselves workflow steps. A purely technical job is a task.

What goes wrong

  • A workflow with a Wait never moves on. The Workflow Resume task is off. The Wait step's panel and Workflow Run History both say so.
  • A scheduled workflow never starts. The Workflow Scheduler task is off, or the workflow was never published.
  • Someone cannot open the builder. They are not an architect and hold no role on any workflow; the page says so.

Worked example

A housing association wants every new repair request acknowledged and chased. An architect chooses New workflow, names it "Repair acknowledgement", sets Works on records in to the repairs datastore and Starts to When a record changes, A record is added. They add an E-mail step, an SLA timer of 2 working days, a Wait until that deadline and a Condition that checks whether the repair is still open, with a Notify step on its Yes path. Validate shows no problems, Simulate on a real repair shows the e-mail that would be sent, and Publish makes version 1 live.

Recommendations

  • Start from a template where one is close; see Workflow Templates.
  • Simulate before you publish: it changes nothing and sends nothing.
  • Write a Description saying who relies on the workflow.
  • Give a process owner a role so they can see its runs without being an architect.
  • Check the two workflow tasks are on before relying on waits or schedules.