Automation: Workflows

How to use Introwise Workflows to automate manual tasks for your sessions

Workflows allows you to automate common manual tasks for your sessions during the full lifecycle of a session: from the moment it is scheduled and booked, until when it starts, and ends.

With workflows you define when and what should happen, and let Introwise, or connected integrations through Zapier do the busywork.

Workflows are available on all plans, but users on the Free plan are limited to one active workflow only.

💡 Have feedback about workflows? Let us know!

What is a workflow

Workflows consists of multiple actions. Each action has a trigger that describes when the action should be executed. For example, for sessions possible triggers are:

After a session is scheduled
Before/after a session starts
Before/after a session ends

All of those triggers allows you to specify a time offset up to 30 days to precisely time your actions.

Workflows are only executed for services/series/sessions that they are explicitly attached to. This allows you to mix and match different workflows for different types of sessions that you're offering.

You can set workflows as default which will automatically include them in any new service, series or group session that you create.

Creating a workflow

To create a workflow follow these steps:

Go to Automation section in the top-level menu and select Workflows
Click Create new workflow
Give your workflow a descriptive name to easily identify it later
(optional) Set your workflows as default to automatically use it when creating new services or series
Click Save to create a workflow
Add your first action by clicking Add an action
1. Choose when this action should happen by selecting a trigger and an offset. Use zero to indicate that the action should happen immediately on trigger
2. Describe what your action should do. Note that not all actions are available for all triggers.
3. Click Save
Repeat step 6 to add more actions to this workflow

Once you've built your workflow it's important to attach it to a service, a series, or a group session:

Go to the service/series/session that you want to attach this workflow to
In the workflows field select the newly created workflow to add it to the list. Multiple workflows can be attached to the same service/series/session at the same time
Click Save

When your workflow is ready and attached, click Unpause to set it live.

Pausing and unpausing a workflow

Sometimes you might need to temporarily stop certain automations from being executed. In this case you can pause a workflow. This will stop any actions from being executed while the workflow is paused.

Unpausing a workflow resumes the execution of a workflow as normal. All the upcoming actions will be executed at their scheduled times.

Editing and deleting a workflow

You can edit or delete workflows at any time. Any changes to actions that you modify will be reflected immediately, including for workflows that have already been scheduled.

Deleting a workflow stops execution of any scheduled actions in that workflow. Deleting cannot be undone, so if you want to disable a workflow only temporarily we recommend to pause it instead.

To edit a workflow:

Go to Automation section in the top-level menu and select Workflows
Find the workflow that you want to edit
Make any necessary changes to actions saving each action in the process
(optional) To rename a workflow click Edit near its name, give it a new name and click Save
To delete a workflow click Delete

Using custom automation actions with Zapier

In addition to built-in actions, you can use Introwise Workflows to execute custom automations using Zapier.

With custom actions, Introwise Workflows controls when something should be executed, and Zapier controls what should be done. This allows you to combine powerful Zapier integrations with precise timing of Introwise Workflows.

To create a custom automation action:

Create or edit a new workflow (see instructions above)
In that workflow, create a new action Trigger custom automation
In the description field give this action a name that you could easily identify in Zapier, e.g. something that this action should perform, or the tool that you're connecting with
Go to Zapier and create a new Zap
Hint: use Integrations tab for a quick way to access Zapier
Choose Introwise as an app and Workflow Action Triggered as the event that this Zap should run on triggering
In the trigger section choose the workflow, and then the action that you've just created from the dropdown list
Continue with the rest of your Zap setup to define the actions that your automation should perform
Set your Zap live by publishing it
Attach your workflow and unpause it if you haven't already done so

Introwise Workflows will automatically execute the custom automation action at the specified trigger time in your workflow, which will immediately trigger the Zap automation in your Zapier.

As with other Introwise Zapier triggers, your Zaps will receive additional data from Introwise when they're run, including session and booking details. Check an example data when creating a Zap to see which input fields are available to your automations.

Troubleshooting

I've created a workflow, but it doesn't seem to be executing

If you suspect that your workflow is not being executed:

Check that it is active and not paused. Unpause the workflow if necessary
Check that the workflow is attached to the service/series/session that you expect it to run for. The workflow page will display how many services or series are using that workflow, e.g. "Used in 4 services", and you can check that those are correct by clicking on that number.
Workflows won't execute actions that are already in the past at the moment of scheduling. E.g. if you send a reminder 24 hours in advance, but your session was booked only 20 hours before its scheduled time, then no reminders will be sent.
Cancelled sessions automatically stop execution of workflows scheduled for them. You can check whether a workflow was cancelled by clicking on View scheduled executions on the workflow page.