Building a workflow

A workflow is built on a canvas. You drag steps onto it and join them with lines, and the lines are the workflow: each one says "when this step finishes this way, do that next".

Every workflow starts with one trigger and runs from there.

Joining steps together

Most steps have a single outgoing connection. Some have several, one per outcome, and which one is used depends on what the step decided — a condition offers True and False, an approval offers Approved, Rejected and Timed Out, an API call offers Success and Error.

Leaving an outcome unconnected is allowed and means the workflow simply stops if it ends up there. That is worth checking before you publish: an unconnected Rejected outcome is a rejection nobody hears about.

Triggers

A trigger decides when a workflow starts. Each workflow has exactly one.

Event starts the workflow when something happens in WiseParts — a record reaching a status, a message arriving, and so on. This is the usual choice.

Schedule starts it on a timetable rather than in response to anything, and runs it once for every record in the audience you pick:

• Audience — which records to act on, such as Customers with overdue / due-soon documents, with how many days ahead counts as due soon.
• Frequency — Daily, Weekly or Monthly, with the time of day, and the day of the week or month when it applies.
• Timezone — the timezone that time is read in. Leave it empty to use your account's timezone.

Manual starts it only when somebody runs it themselves, which is useful while you are still testing.

Webhook starts it when an outside system calls WiseParts.

Logic

Condition sends the run one way or the other depending on a condition you set.

Switch sends the run down the first path whose condition matches, with an Otherwise path for everything else.

Filter lets the run continue only if its condition holds, and stops it otherwise.

Merge brings separate paths back together so the steps after it are written once rather than repeated on each branch.

Besides comparing a field with a value, a condition can check whether a field Is empty or Is not empty.

Waiting

These are the steps that make a workflow something an automation cannot be: it can stop, wait, and carry on later.

Delay waits for a set time before continuing.

Human approval puts the run in front of a person and waits for their decision, then continues down Approved, Rejected, or Timed Out if nobody answers in time.

Wait for event holds the run until something specific happens, then continues.

A waiting workflow is not a stuck one. It can sit for days and resume exactly where it left off.

Actions

Update field and Change status write to the record the workflow is running on.

Create task raises a task for someone to pick up.

Send notification tells someone that something happened.

Set variable stores a value for later steps to use.

Call API sends a request to a system outside WiseParts, and offers Success and Error so you can handle a failure rather than have the run stop.

Assigning to a role

When Create Task or Human Approval is assigned to a role rather than a person, Assignment Strategy decides who gets it:

• Shared pool — nobody in particular; anyone in the role can pick it up.
• Round robin (rotate evenly) — each one goes to the next person in the role in turn.
• Least busy — it goes to whoever has the fewest open items.

Inserting record values

In a notification message or approval instructions, select Insert variable to drop in a value from the record or from an earlier step. It is filled in when the workflow runs.

A variable marked Conditional comes from a step that only runs on some paths, so it is empty when the run takes another one.

Conversation steps

Send Message Template sends one of your message templates to the contact, over the template's own channel — WhatsApp, email or widget. It offers Continue once sent, Skipped when the contact cannot be reached or the template cannot be sent yet, and Failed if sending goes wrong.

Close Conversation resolves the conversation.

Assign Conversation hands the conversation to a specific person, keeps whoever already has it, or picks someone automatically the way the inbox does.

Add Conversation Tag tags the conversation.

Assign Conversation Task creates a task for the conversation.

Order steps

Change Order Status moves the order to the status you choose.

Send Order Recovery sends an open order to the customer again.

Building one by describing it

Select Ask Henry in the builder and describe what you want in plain language — "notify the account manager when a return is rejected", or "add a human approval step before any status change".

Henry drafts it onto your canvas as a proposal. Review each one before keeping it: you can revert any change Henry makes, and nothing is published until you publish it.

You can also ask Henry what an existing workflow does, which is the quickest way back into something built months ago.

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