How to build your first workflow

A workflow is a rule you build in Brain › Workflows: when a record is created or changes, check something, then do something. This page builds one end to end for Fairgreen Golf Co.: when a repair is logged as urgent, create a task for the warehouse team.

Every other page in this section goes deeper on one step of it. Start at What are workflows? for the concepts.

What do you need before you start?

Building needs Build and edit workflows, and making a workflow live needs Publish workflows as well. Admins have both by default. See How to set who can do what.

If you can open a workflow but nothing moves, you have View workflows only, and the corner of the canvas reads View only. You can still click any step to read its settings.

How do you create one?

Go to Brain › Workflows and press New workflow. It opens straight onto the canvas with the name Untitled workflow selected, so type the real name straight away.

You can also start one from the Create new (+) menu: choose Automation. That opens a new workflow named Untitled automation, again ready to type over.

Name it after what it does. "Urgent repair to warehouse" is findable in six months and "Workflow 3" is not. The name saves when you click away or press Enter.

How does the canvas work?

You build left to right. The step library is on the left, the canvas in the middle, and a step's options open on the right when you click it.

• Add a step by clicking its card in the library. It lands to the right of the last step, and its options open.
• Browse the library with its rail: All, Triggers, Conditions, Actions, Notify, Advanced. Or type in Search steps….
• Connect two steps by dragging from the right-hand dot of one to the left-hand dot of the next.
• Move a step by dragging it.
• Copy a step with Duplicate in its options. The copy lands just below the original with no lines attached, ready to connect.
• Remove a step with the small × on its card, or Delete in its options.

Each step's options say what it Gives, and what it Reads when it reads something. That is the fastest way to understand a step you have not used.

How do you add the trigger?

Open Triggers in the library and pick the card for the kind of record and the moment you want. For this example, choose Repair created from the Repair group.

Every workflow has exactly one trigger, and the flow starts there. See How to choose a trigger.

How do you add the condition?

Open Conditions, find the Repair group and add the card for the field you want to check. Fairgreen's repairs have an Urgency field, so the card is Repair Urgency.

In its options, set Comparison to is, then type Urgent in the Urgency box that appears. Connect the trigger's right-hand dot to the condition's left-hand dot.

A condition has two dots on its right: a green Yes and a red No. The dot your next line leaves from decides which branch it is, so check it every time. See How to add a yes/no decision.

How do you add the action?

Open Actions and add Create task. Drag a line from the condition's green Yes dot to it.

In its options, fill in:

• Title: what the task says. Put the repair's own details in it, so the task is specific. See How to use values from the triggering record.
• Department: where the task lands. Fairgreen picks its warehouse department.
• Assign to: a person, or leave it on Nobody.
• Due in (days): 2, so the task is due two days after the workflow runs.

Priority and Description sit under Advanced in the same options, if you want them. See How to create tasks and records from a workflow.

How do you save and tidy?

Press Save at the top right of the canvas, and a Workflow saved. message confirms it. The canvas keeps your steps only when you press Save or Publish, so save before you leave the page.

If the canvas is messy, Tidy up the layout re-places every step from its connections. It sits in the canvas controls, under the zoom and fit-to-screen buttons.

A step that is not finished gets a red outline and a plain-English message on its card, such as choosing a comparison for a field you picked. Fix those before you publish.

How do you make it run?

Two separate things, and this catches everybody once.

1. Publish it with the button beside Save. Publish saves the canvas, checks every step, and makes this version the live one.
2. Switch it on with the switch on its row in Brain › Workflows. A new workflow starts switched off.

A workflow that is published and switched off does nothing. So does one that is switched on and still a draft. See How to publish, switch on and read a run.

How do you test it?

Create a repair that matches, then open the workflow's Runs tab.

Tideswell checks for changes every five minutes or so, so give it a few minutes. Then expand the run to read what it did, step by step, with an Open the task link to the task it made.

How do you change one that is already live?

Edit it on the canvas, then press Publish. Publish saves your changes for you and makes them live in one go.

Any save returns the workflow to draft, even one that only moved a step or tidied the layout, and a draft does not run. So finish each change with Publish, and the workflow is running again the moment it succeeds. Renaming a workflow leaves it as it was.