Building Your First Automation How to build a workflow in the Automation Hub: start from a template, understand the node types, test it, and switch it on.

Operations, Workflows, Automations. Workflows that run when something happens in the platform - a deal is won, an invoice goes overdue, someone joins. You need the automation capability.

The Two Tabs

Discover holds the template library and the AI copilot. This is where you start.

Your workflows lists what you have built, grouped by area, with a count of how many are running.

Start From A Template, Not A Blank Canvas

The template library is tiered, and the tiers are honest about complexity:

Tier	What it involves
Starter	Single trigger, single action
Intermediate	Conditions and branches
Advanced	Loops, switches, transforms
Expert	Cross-area orchestration with AI

Start at Starter even if the eventual workflow is complex. A single trigger and a single action that you have watched run successfully is worth more than an elaborate flow you are not sure fires.

1. Open Discover and filter to Starter.
2. Pick a template close to what you want.
3. Open it in the builder. The nodes are already laid out.
4. Change the specifics - which pipeline, which recipient, which template.
5. Test it before activating. See below.
6. Save and activate.

The Node Types

Eleven kinds of node. Every workflow starts with a trigger and ends with an end node.

Node	What it does
Trigger	The event that starts the flow
Condition	If/else branch on a value
Switch	Multi-case branch
Transform	Compute a variable from other values
For each	Run an action for every matching row
Action	Do something - send, create, update
Wait	Pause for a set time
Email wait	Park until the recipient opens or clicks, then branch, or take a "no engagement" path on timeout
Approval	Pause for a person to decide
AI	Analyse or summarise
End	Complete the flow

Email wait is the one people miss. It is what makes a follow-up sequence possible: send, wait for engagement, and take a different path depending on whether they opened it.

Approval parks the workflow until somebody decides. The decision is recorded and the flow resumes down the approved or rejected branch. It resumes automatically - you do not need to do anything to restart it.

Triggers

A trigger is an event key, chosen from the catalogue of events the platform emits, organised by area and record type. Sales alone carries deal created, phase changed, stage changed, assigned, won and lost.

Pick the most specific trigger that fits. "Deal won" is better than "deal phase changed" plus a condition testing for won - fewer executions, less to go wrong.

Testing Before You Activate

Two tools in the builder toolbar, and both are worth the minute they take.

Dry run executes the workflow against a sample payload without sending anything or writing any records. Use it to confirm the branches go where you expect.

Runs shows recent executions with a per-step timeline, errors and duration. After activating, this is where you confirm the first real run behaved.

You can also save without activating, which keeps a draft you can come back to.

Building From Scratch

When no template fits:

1. Add a trigger node and pick the event.
2. Add an action node and pick what it should do.
3. Connect them.
4. Add a condition if the action should only happen sometimes. Conditions read the trigger's data, so a deal-won trigger gives you the deal's value to test against.
5. Add an end node.
6. Dry run.
7. Save and activate.

Resist adding a second action until the first one has run successfully in production.

The AI Copilot

Describe what you want in plain language and a workflow is drafted for you. Treat it exactly as you would the role drafting in Settings: a starting point to review, not an answer. Open every node and check it before activating.

Common Questions

My workflow is saved but nothing happens. Check it is active - saving and activating are separate. Then open Automation Health and look for the event in the stream.

Can a workflow trigger another workflow? Indirectly. If an action emits an event, a workflow listening for that event will fire. Be careful of loops.

What happens if a step fails halfway? The execution stops and records the error, visible in Runs and in Automation Health. Earlier steps are not rolled back, so a workflow that creates a record then fails leaves the record.

How do I stop one? Deactivate it. Executions already in flight finish.