Workflow automation

The Workflow Automation module runs steps for you when something happens: a record is created or changed, a schedule is due, a date approaches, or someone selects Run now. Workflows check conditions, ask people for approval, wait, call webhooks and run actions provided by other modules, such as creating a task, sending an email or approving an expense claim.

Before you begin

• The Workflow Automation module must be enabled for your organization. Some modules, such as Expenses, require it.
• Building workflows needs Create, edit and run workflows; viewing them and their runs needs View workflows and their runs. By default only administrators have these.
• Anyone can decide the approvals assigned to them. No permission is needed.

warning

Workflow steps run with the organization's full permissions, whoever triggered them. Grant Create, edit and run workflows only to trusted roles.

Key concepts

Term	Meaning
Workflow	A trigger, optional conditions and a list of steps. Each workflow can be enabled or disabled.
Trigger	What starts the workflow: a record change, a schedule, a date, or a manual start.
Conditions	Rules the triggering record must match for the workflow to run.
Step	One thing the workflow does: request approval, wait, send a webhook, or run an action. Steps run in order.
Run	One execution of a workflow, with a log of each step.
Approval	A request for one or more people to approve or reject before the run continues.

The workflows list

Select Automation in the main menu (/m/automation). Each workflow shows its trigger, its number of steps, run counts (including how many are waiting or failed), the Last run and, for scheduled workflows, the next run. The Enabled switch turns a workflow on or off.

The list of workflows.

My approvals opens your approvals inbox.

Create a workflow

1. On the Automation page, select New workflow (or choose Create a workflow in the command palette).
2. Enter a Name (for example Approve new companies) and, optionally, a Description.
3. Set the trigger.
4. For record and date triggers, add conditions if the workflow should only run for some records.
5. Add steps with Add step.
6. Select Create workflow.

New workflows are disabled. When you're ready, turn on the Enabled switch, on the workflow's page or in the list.

Editing a workflow: trigger, conditions and steps.

To change a workflow later, open it and select the Edit tab, then Save workflow. Each save increases the workflow's version. Runs already in progress keep the version they started with.

Triggers

Under Trigger, choose how the workflow starts:

Trigger	Settings	Starts when
When a record changes	Record type, Event (Created, Updated or Deleted). For Updated, optionally Only when these fields change.	A record of that type is created, updated or deleted.
On a schedule	Repeat: Every hour (at a Minute past the hour), Every day or Every week (on a Day) at a Time.	The scheduled time arrives, in the organization's time zone (from organization settings).
On a date	Record type, Date field, When (a number of days before or after, or On the day) and At (an hour).	That many days before or after the record's date, for example 3 days before a task's due date.
Manually (Run now)	None.	Someone selects Run now on the workflow's page.

Any record type that an enabled module declares can be used, for example Contact, Company, Lead, Opportunity, Quotation, Bill, Expense claim, Form response, Task, Note, File, Organization unit and User. Custom fields are included.

:::note On a date Only records created or changed after the workflow is enabled get a start time; existing records are picked up the next time they change. Changing the date moves the start time. Each start time is used once. :::

Conditions

For When a record changes and On a date triggers, Conditions limit the records the workflow runs for. Without conditions, it runs for every matching event.

1. Select Add condition.
2. Choose a Field (custom fields included), an Operator and a Value.
3. With several conditions, choose to Match all or any of them.

Operators: is, is not, contains, does not contain, starts with, is one of, is greater than, is at least, is less than, is at most, is empty, is not empty, changed and changed to. Text comparisons ignore upper and lower case.

Steps

Select Add step and choose a step type. Steps run in order; approvals and waits pause the run. Use Move up and Move down to reorder steps.

Step	What it does
Request approval	Asks people to approve or reject. See below.
Wait	Pauses the run for a number of Minutes, Hours or Days.
Send a webhook	Sends an HTTP POST with the workflow, run, trigger, record, previous values, changes, the person who made the change and the last approval as JSON, to a URL.
Module actions	Runs an action provided by Workflow Automation or by another module. See Actions.

Request approval

Field	Meaning
Title and Message	What the approvers see ("What the approvers should check").
Approvers	People, and/or Or everyone with a role. Role holders are resolved when the approval is requested; only active members are asked.
Needs	One approver (first decision counts) or Every approver (one rejection rejects).
If rejected	Stop the workflow, or Continue (steps can run "if rejected").
The person who made the change cannot approve it	Four-eyes principle.
Escalate if nobody decides	After Escalate after (hours) (1 to 720) without a decision, the people and roles in Escalate to are asked too and notified.

Run a step only after approval or rejection

Steps placed after an approval have a Run this step setting: Always, Only if the last approval was approved or Only if the last approval was rejected. Combined with If rejected: Continue, this lets one workflow handle both outcomes.

Webhooks

For a Send a webhook step, enter the URL. Optionally enter a Signing secret: each request then carries an X-Modulix-Signature: sha256=<HMAC of the body> header so the receiver can verify it. Webhooks only reach public internet addresses and don't follow redirects. Administrators can turn webhook steps off (they then fail) and set their timeout in settings.

Variables in text fields

Text inputs accept variables, inserted with the Insert a variable button, for example:

Variable	Value
{{record.id}}, {{record.name}}…	A field of the triggering record.
{{previous.status}}…	A field's value before the change.
{{actor.id}}, {{actor.name}}	The user who made the change.
{{approval.status}}, {{approval.comment}}	The last approval's result and comment.
{{workflow.name}}, {{run.id}}	The workflow and the run.

Actions

Under Module actions, the Add step menu lists the actions of the enabled modules. Each action has its own inputs.

Action	Provided by	What it does
Update a field	Workflow Automation	Changes a field of a record (Record type, Record ID, Field, New value). Works on custom fields (customFields.<key>) and on the fields their module allows, such as those of contacts, companies and tasks. An empty value clears the field.
Set a user's status	Core	Sets a member to Active, Suspended or Deactivated.
Send a notification	Notifications	Notifies members (Recipients (user IDs), Title, Message, Link) through the channels each chose for Messages.
Send an email	Notifications	Emails any address (To, Subject, Message) through the organization's email provider.
Create a note	Notes	Adds a note to the Notes board (Title, Content, Color, Pinned).
Create a task	Activities & Tasks	Creates a task, optionally about the triggering record, due in a number of days.
Change a task's status	Activities & Tasks	Sets a task to To do, In progress, Done or Cancelled.
Create a contact	Contacts	Adds a person; the company is found by name or email domain, or created.
Create a lead	Leads	Adds a lead, or updates the lead with the same email.
Move a lead to a stage	Leads	Moves a lead to a stage, with an optional disqualification reason.
Assign a lead	Leads	To a person, or by the assignment rules when no person is given.
Send a payment reminder	Sales	Emails the reminder for an unpaid invoice.
Approve an expense claim	Expenses	Approves a submitted claim, with an optional comment.
Reject an expense claim	Expenses	Rejects a submitted claim; a comment is required.

If a step uses an action whose module has been disabled, the step shows that the action is not available.

Example: expense claim approval

1. Trigger: When a record changes, Record type Expense claim, Event Updated.
2. Condition: Status changed to Submitted.
3. Step 1: Request approval from the finance managers' role, If rejected: Continue.
4. Step 2: Approve an expense claim with Claim (id) {{record.id}}, Run this step: Only if the last approval was approved.
5. Step 3: Reject an expense claim with Claim (id) {{record.id}} and Why (required) set to {{approval.comment}}, Run this step: Only if the last approval was rejected.

See Expenses for how claims are approved without workflows.

Run a workflow manually

Workflows with a Manually (Run now) or On a schedule trigger can be started at any time: open the workflow and select Run now.

Runs

Each workflow's page has a Runs tab listing its runs: when each Started and by whom (or by a workflow), its Status, the Record and the Progress through the steps. Select a run to open its panel.

A run's details and step log.

The run panel shows the trigger, the record, who made the change, when a waiting run resumes, any error, and the log of each step with its outcome (Done, Failed, Skipped, Waiting, Cancelled, Not reached), outputs and approval decisions.

Run status	Meaning
Queued	About to run.
Running	Executing steps.
Waiting	Paused by a Wait step or an approval.
Completed	Every step finished.
Failed	A step failed. The workflow's creator or last editor is notified.
Rejected	An approval was rejected and the workflow stopped.
Cancelled	Cancelled by someone, or because the workflow was deleted.

• Cancel run stops a queued, waiting or failed run, and cancels its open approvals.
• Retry restarts a failed run from the step that failed.

Starting a workflow never blocks the change that triggered it. Changes made by a run never start the same workflow again, and workflows started by other workflows stop after three levels.

Approvals

When a workflow asks you to decide, you're notified (Approval requests) and the request appears:

• in Approvals in the main menu (/m/automation/approvals), also reachable with My approvals;
• as a badge in the top bar showing how many approvals wait for you;
• in the Waiting for your approval widget on the dashboard.

Your approvals inbox.

To decide:

1. Open Approvals. The Waiting for me tab lists open requests with who requested them and whether One approval is enough or Everyone must approve.
2. Select Approve or Reject.
3. Optionally add a Comment (it is available to later steps as {{approval.comment}}), then confirm.

The workflow continues right away. The History tab lists requests you decided and those settled by others. The person whose change started the request gets an Approval decisions notification.

To hide the dashboard widget, open your Profile and turn off Show pending approvals on the dashboard under Workflow Automation preferences.

Delete or pause a workflow

To pause a workflow, turn off Enabled. To delete it, open it, select the delete icon (Delete workflow) and confirm. Runs in progress are cancelled with their open approvals; past runs stay in the history.

Settings

Administrators set these on Administration → Settings, Workflow Automation tab:

Setting	Default	What it does
Allow workflows to send webhooks	On	When off, webhook steps fail instead of sending.
Webhook timeout (seconds)	10	How long a webhook may take, from 1 to 30 seconds.
Maximum enabled workflows	100	How many workflows can be enabled at once, up to 500.

Personal preference (in your Profile):

Preference	Default	What it does
Show pending approvals on the dashboard	On	Shows or hides the Waiting for your approval widget.

Notifications

Notification	Sent when	Default channels
Approval requests	A workflow needs your decision.	In-app, email, push
Approval decisions	A request started by your change is approved or rejected.	In-app
Failed workflow runs	A workflow you created or last edited fails.	In-app, email

These need the Notifications module. See Notifications.

Permissions

Permission	What it allows	Granted by default to
automation.workflow.read — View workflows and their runs	See the Automation page, workflows and their runs.	Admin
automation.workflow.manage — Create, edit and run workflows	Create, edit, enable, disable, delete and run workflows; cancel and retry runs.	Admin

Limitations

• Steps run one after the other: there are no parallel branches or loops.
• On a date triggers don't scan records that existed before the workflow was enabled, and a run that is more than seven days late is dropped.
• Update a field only changes fields their module allows, and custom fields.