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Building a Workflow Template ​

A workflow template is a review sequence: the steps something goes through, and the routes between them. This is how you build one of your own, instead of using the ready-made ones.

Start with the standard templates if they fit — see Starting a Workflow. Build your own when your review has steps or people the standard sequences do not.

Where it is ​

Workflows (/admin/workflows) → New template, then open the template you created. The template page is where the steps live. It is an admin surface: owners and admins edit templates, everyone else can read them.

The fastest way to a template that is nearly right is Duplicate on one of the standard ones — it copies the steps and the routes, and you edit from there.

The two halves of a template ​

Steps are the things that happen: a review, an approval, a notification. Each step waits for whoever it is assigned to.

Transitions are the routes between steps: "when this step is approved, go to that one". They are also the buttons — the approvals list offers a step's outgoing transitions as its actions, so a step with no transition out of it is a step nobody can do anything with, and a step with an Approve and a Reject route gives its reviewer both buttons.

A template needs both. Steps alone give you a workflow that stops at the first one.

Adding a step ​

Add step on the Steps card. Seven fields:

FieldWhat it does
Step nameWhat the assignee sees in their approvals list. "Client Review", not "Step 3".
TypeHuman review is a step a person does — it is the type that raises an approval notification on its own. Notification is a "released"-style end step. The agent types are for automated work; see the warning below.
Assign toWho this step normally waits on. Optional: the person starting the workflow can name somebody instead, and what they say wins.
DisciplineAssign from the project members in this discipline (Process, Mechanical, Electrical, I&C, Civil — or type your own). The approver of the step before chooses who in the pool gets it. See Discipline-to-Discipline Review.
Minimum project roleNarrows the pool to members at or above this role (e.g. Approver or above). Works with or without a discipline.
Due in (days)Shows on the assignee's approvals list and orders it. Optional.
Required approvalsOptional. Leave empty for one.

Steps are added to the end and numbered in order. Move earlier / later on a step's row changes that number. The first step is where a workflow starts, so it is the number that matters most.

The agent step types do nothing yet. Nothing in the app executes an Agent task or Agent review step. If a workflow starts on one, it is skipped — recorded in the history as auto-advanced, with the reason — and lands on the first step a person can act on. That is why the standard templates, which all open on an agent "Draft", put their reviewer straight onto the human review. An agent step assigned to a person is not skipped: it waits for them like any other step.

Editing and deleting ​

Edit on a step's row changes anything about it. Settings the editor has no field for — things the standard templates carry, like an agent's own configuration — are kept as they are.

Delete removes the step and every route into or out of it, and renumbers what is left. The app asks first, and says so. If you only want to change the order or the name, use Move or Edit.

Joining steps up ​

Add transition on the Transitions card. Three choices:

  • From step — the step being left.
  • Action — Approve, Reject, Escalate or Skip. This is the button the assignee presses.
  • To step — where that action goes.

The usual shape is a chain of Approve transitions forward, plus Reject transitions pointing back to whoever has to redo the work. The standard templates are worth reading for this: rejection on a review goes back to the draft, not to the previous approval.

A step cannot route to itself, and both steps must belong to this template.

Turning it on ​

A template has to be activated before it can be started, and the app checks the shape of it first. Above the steps you will see one of:

  • Green — every step can be reached from the first one. Activate is available.
  • Amber — a warning worth reading (for example, no transitions at all, or several steps with no way out of them). You can still activate.
  • Red — the reasons the template cannot be activated, listed. Activate stays greyed out until they are fixed. The usual ones are:
    • Template must have at least one step — add one.
    • The following steps are unreachable from the first step — nothing routes to them. Add a transition, or move the step to the front if it was meant to be first.
    • The following transitions point at a step that is not in this template — a leftover route. Delete it.

Deactivate takes a template out of circulation. It disappears from the Start workflow picker and cannot be started, but workflows already running on it carry on.

A worked example ​

A three-step client sign-off:

  1. Add step → "Internal Review", Human review, assigned to your reviewer, due in 3 days.
  2. Add step → "Client Sign-off", Human review, due in 5 days.
  3. Add step → "Issued", Notification.
  4. Add transition → Internal Review — Approve → Client Sign-off.
  5. Add transition → Client Sign-off — Approve → Issued.
  6. Add transition → Client Sign-off — Reject → Internal Review.
  7. The banner turns green. Activate.

It is now in the Start workflow picker, and the reviewer's approvals list will show "Internal Review" with Approve and nothing else, while the client's step offers both.

See also ​