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Node Types

Fifteen node types cover what a workflow can do.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Automation:

  • Workflow Builder — the canvas, nodes and edges
  • Worklist — what is waiting on a person

Structure

  • Trigger — where a run starts.
  • Condition — two output ports, true and false.

Changing data

  • Update — set fields on the record.
  • Status — set the status field specifically, which also writes to the activity stream so the change is visible in the record’s history.
  • Create — make a related record.
  • Convert — create a record in another datastore from this one, mapping fields across and linking the two.

Status rather than update, where you are setting a status: the activity entry is the difference between a history somebody can read and a field that silently changed.

Communicating

  • Email, SMS, WhatsApp and Letter.

Four channels from the same canvas. Choose by what the recipient will actually receive rather than by what is convenient — a letter for something formal, a message for something urgent.

Time

  • Wait — pause until a point in time, then resume.
  • SLA — a timer with a target, resuming on one path if met and another if breached.

Both suspend the run, which is resumed later by the task engine. That is what allows a workflow to span days without holding anything open.

People

  • Approval — pause until somebody decides.
  • Signature — pause until a document is signed.
  • Verification — pause until an identity check completes.

These are what make a workflow a process rather than a script: it waits for a person, indefinitely, without anybody holding state.

Overlaps worth knowing

  • Update against status — use status for statuses.
  • Create against convert — convert where the new record derives from this one and should be linked.
  • Wait against SLA — wait for a delay, SLA where meeting the deadline matters and the two outcomes differ.

Label the edges

Particularly out of conditions and SLA nodes. "True" and "false" tell you nothing six months later; "approved" and "referred" tell you what the branch means.

Worked example

A complaints workflow uses trigger, status, email, SLA, condition, approval and letter — acknowledging by e-mail, running a five-day SLA timer, escalating on breach, requesting approval before closure and sending the outcome by letter. Every edge is labelled.

Recommendations

  • Status nodes for statuses — they write to the activity stream.
  • Convert where the record derives from this one.
  • SLA where the deadline matters, wait where it does not.
  • Label every edge meaningfully.