Introduction to Workflows

Workflows are automated messaging sequences that help you create seamless, personalized customer journeys for your brand. Workflows let you orchestrate entire brand interactions—so you can send the right message to the right customer at every touchpoint.

With workflows, you can send your customers messages, wait for them to open them, tailor the customer’s journey based on their attributes or behavior, update your contacts’ subscription preferences, and send or retrieve data from third-party services.

You can use workflows to build things like:

• Welcome sequences
• Cart abandonment sequences
• Special offers and promos
• Birthday or anniversary sequences
• And so much more!

# Table of contents

# Required permissions

• To view, search, and filter your organization’s workflows, you'll need the Workflows, Campaigns and Experiments > View permission.

• To create, edit, or copy a workflow, you'll need the Workflows, Campaigns and Experiments > Draft permission.

• To archive a workflow, you'll need the Workflows, Campaigns and Experiments > Activate & Manage permission.

# Browsing your workflows

Sign in to Iterable and navigate to Messaging > Workflows.

The Workflows page gives you a high-level overview of all your past and current workflows so you can keep track of your customer journeys at a glance.

From this page, you can:

• Create a new workflow
• Edit or copy an existing workflow
• Check the status, trigger type, sends, and last modified date of all your workflows
• Sort, search, and filter your workflows
• Archive workflows you no longer need
• Organize your workflows into folders

Use the tabs at the top of the page to view all workflows of a particular type: All, Enabled, Disabled, or Archived.

To see more information about a specific workflow, click the drop-down arrow to the right of the workflow’s name.

Under the name of your workflow, you’ll see the workflow ID and a list of all the campaigns that are associated with the workflow. If any campaigns in your workflow use an Iterable AI feature—such as Send Time Optimization—you’ll see a robot icon. If your workflow is associated with an experiment, you’ll see a beaker icon.

To find out who in your organization last modified a workflow and when, hover over the employee avatar that appears in the Last modified column.

To find out who in your organization created a workflow, hover over the relative date in the Last modified column. You’ll see the name of the team member who created the workflow, along with the date and time the workflow was created.

You can see the total number of workflows your team has created in your Iterable project at the bottom left of the page. (This number will update every time you search or filter your list of workflows.)

Use the buttons on the bottom right of the screen to change the number of workflows displayed per page.

# Building a workflow

Workflows consist of a beginning (the Start node), a series of steps or stages (nodes), and the paths between them (connections).

To build a workflow, set up the Start node, add and configure nodes for all the stages you want contacts to go through, then connect all the steps together.

# Creating a new workflow

To create a new workflow, click the New workflow button in the upper-right corner of the page.

Give your workflow a name (for example, "Welcome Sequence") and click Save.

# Setting up the Start node

1. Double-click the Start node (the green box on the canvas) to set up the beginning of your workflow.

   

2. Select a trigger from the drop-down, and configure the node settings.

   

3. Click Update Node.

To learn about the different triggers you can use to start a workflow, see the Workflow Triggers support guide.

# Adding and deleting nodes

To add a node to your workflow, grab a tile from the panel on the left side of the page and drag it onto the canvas.

To delete a node, hover over the node on the canvas and click the red X that appears in the upper-right corner of the node.

# Selecting and moving nodes

To select a single node, click on the node on the canvas. A yellow bar will appear around the node when it is selected.

To select multiple nodes, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and click all of the nodes you want to select.

To move a node or group of nodes, click and drag your selection to move it around on the canvas.

# Editing nodes

To set up or edit a node, double-click the node on the canvas. The node settings menu will open.

After you’ve finished editing the node settings, click Update node to save your changes.

# Changing the template in a workflow campaign

To edit or change the template that's used in a workflow campaign, double-click the send node associated with the campaign. Then, click Back to Select Template.

# Copying nodes

To make a copy of a node or group of nodes, select the node(s) and click the Clone selected button.

# Connecting and disconnecting nodes

When you connect two nodes, you create a path between them. Any contacts that go through the workflow will travel from one connected node to the next.

To connect two nodes in a workflow, drag a line between their connection points.

To remove a connection between two nodes, hover over the connection line and click the red X that appears.

# Adding an experiment to a workflow campaign

When you create a campaign in a workflow send node, you can add an experiment to the campaign.

1. Double-click the Send node to open the node settings menu.

2. Scroll down to the bottom of the menu, and click Create A/B Experiment.

   

# Limiting workflow entries

You can set limits for how many times a contact can go through a workflow.

Click the Advanced Options button in the upper-right corner of the page.

There are two ways to limit the number of workflow entries:

• Limit simultaneous entrances per user

  Check this box to prevent contacts from entering the same workflow multiple times simultaneously. This can be useful for things like shopping cart abandonment workflows (you probably don't want to send an email to customers for every item they leave behind in their cart).

  In general, it's a good idea to turn this option on for marketing workflows and leave it off for transactional workflows (such as a password reset).

• Limit lifetime entrances per user

  Check this box to limit the total number of times a contact can ever enter the worklow. This can be useful for workflows that a contact should only go through once (like a welcome series).

# Saving a workflow

When you’ve finished making changes to your workflow, click Save.

# Testing a workflow

Before enabling a workflow, you can test it to make sure that everything is working as expected. This can help you catch any problems with the workflow before any of your contacts are added to it.

Click Send Test Trigger in the toolbar at the top of the screen.

To learn more about testing and troubleshooting workflows, see:

• Testing a Workflow
• Troubleshooting Workflows

# Enabling or disabling a workflow

To enable your workflow, switch the toggle in the top left from Disabled to Enabled.

To disable the workflow, switch the toggle back to Disabled.

To learn more about creating workflows, see the Workflow Best Practices support guide.

# Sorting, searching, and filtering workflows

The Workflows page lets you sort your workflows, filter them based on categories or attributes, and search by name or workflow ID.

# Sorting your workflows

Click the column headers at the top of your workflows list to sort by name, status, or last modified date.

# Searching your workflows

To search your workflows by name or ID, type some keywords in the search bar in the upper-right corner of the page. The workflows list will automatically refresh to return workflows that match your search terms.

# Filtering your workflows

To quickly filter your workflows by status, click one of the tabs in the upper-left corner of the page. You can choose between All, Enabled, Disabled, and Archived.

To apply more filters to your workflows, click the Filters button and select some options from the drop-down.

The search bar and filters work in tandem, allowing you to search within a filtered subset of your workflows.

For example, let’s say you want to view all of the enabled Black Friday sale workflows that you’ve created in your project. To do this, select the Enabled tab in the top left of the page, click the Filters button and select Created by > [Your name]. Then type "Black Friday" in the search bar.

# Editing a workflow

To view or edit one of your workflows, click the name of the workflow. You’ll be taken to the Edit Workflow page, where you can view your workflow’s settings and make any necessary adjustments.

# Copying a workflow

To make a copy of one of your workflows, click the overflow menu (three dots) on the right side of the workflow’s row and select Make a copy from the drop-down.

Copies of workflows are disabled until you enable them. Remember to turn your new workflow live to allow contacts to enter and start receiving messages from the workflow.

# Archiving a workflow

You can archive workflows that you don’t need anymore. Archiving a workflow will remove it from your main workflow list but not delete it.

When you archive an enabled workflow, it is automatically disabled—no new messages will be sent. New contacts will not be able to enter the workflow, and contacts that are in the workflow will complete the step they’re on, then immediately exit.

There are two ways to archive a workflow:

• To archive a single workflow, click the overflow menu (three dots) on the right side of the workflow’s row and select Archive from the drop-down.

• To archive multiple workflows, use the checkboxes on the left side of the page to select some workflows, and click the Archive button in the purple bar at the top of the page.

  

After you archive a workflow, it will no longer appear under the All tab with the rest of your workflows. You can view and restore archived workflows from the Archived tab.

# Viewing workflow performance data

To see how your workflow’s campaigns are performing, click one of the View insights links below the campaigns list.

# Organizing your workflows with folders

You can use folders to group similar workflows together on your Workflows page.

1. To create a folder, click the New folder button at the top of the page.

   

2. Give your folder a name (e.g., “Sales & Promotions”), and click Create folder.

   

3. To move a single workflow into a folder:

   • Click the overflow menu (three dots) for the template you want to move and select Move to folder from the drop-down menu.

   To move multiple workflows into a folder at once:

   • Use the checkboxes on the left side of the page to select the workflows you want to move, then click Move to folder in the purple bar at the top of the page.