Design a workflow

Describe a flow step by step: who does what, what they enter and how it is checked, the decisions and every way it can fail.

In short

A workflow describes a flow step by step: who does what, what they enter and how it is checked, the decisions, and every way it can fail. Checks keep it complete, and AI can draft one or suggest the edge cases it misses.

Before you start

• Who: In an organization you need "Create and change designs" (an Organization Admin, Manager or Member holds it). A Viewer holds "See designs" and can read designs and the catalog. In your Personal Workspace you do everything on your own designs. Inside a design your level decides the rest: View opens it, Comment adds comments, Edit changes it and Manage shares it and deletes it.
• Plan: Designer is part of every plan, Free included. The Free plan limits how many designs a workspace keeps; Plan & usage shows the limit and what you hold. "AI help" for a workflow uses your own AI key, or the platform's on a paid plan.
• First: nothing. Start from a ready flow or an empty one.

Design a workflow

1. Press "New design" and choose "Workflow". Start from a ready flow - sign-up, password reset or checkout - or an empty one.
2. Drag steps from "Add a step" in the left rail (see the table), or press one to put it on the nearest free spot. "Add" in the toolbar opens the same list.
3. Select an action and choose its "Actor" in the inspector. Open "Building it" for its "Permission", "Data" for its "Inputs" and "Outputs", and "References" for what it refers to.
4. Connect steps by dragging from the edge of one to the next. Give each way out of a decision a condition, or make it the otherwise branch.
5. Open "Review", choose "Problems" and fix what it lists.

What each action says

• Actor: who does it - a role such as Customer, or for a system action a component from the catalog.
• Permission: what someone must be allowed to do here, such as Place orders.
• Inputs: each field with its type, whether it is required and its validation rules, such as At least 12 characters.
• Outputs: what the step gives back, such as an order number.
• References: the components, cards, notes or tests the step is about.
• Owner, tags and requirement IDs say who looks after a step and which requirement it meets. See /help/designer/requirement-ids and /help/designer/custom-properties.

Get AI help

1. On an empty workflow, open "Panels", choose "AI help" and describe the flow. AI drafts its steps, decisions and error paths.
2. On a workflow with steps, choose "Edge cases" to get the error paths and edge cases it misses, such as a declined payment or an expired link.
3. Read the proposal on the canvas: added in green, removed as red ghosts, changed in amber.
4. Tick what you want and apply it - one step you can undo.

Good to know

• A way out of an action can be an error path that names what went wrong. Change a branch in the inspector or the outline.
• Checks lists steps nobody can reach, and decisions without conditions or an otherwise branch. It also lists actions without an actor, an error path or a permission, inputs without validation, dead ends and sub-flows that name no workflow. Choose a finding to select what it is about.
• Only the workflow's steps and the ways between them are sent to the AI - never who owns it or who it is shared with.
• Generating a workflow uses your own AI key, or the platform's on a paid plan. Suggesting edge cases counts against your workspace's AI allowance.
• A named journey can become a draft UI Tester track. See /help/designer/draft-ui-tests.
• What happens next: the workflow saves itself. Applying an AI proposal is one step you can undo. Only the steps and the ways between them are sent to AI.

If something goes wrong

• "Describe the flow you want to design.": AI help needs a few sentences.
• "A connection must join two nodes of the design."
• "You can view this design but not change it. Ask someone who manages it for Edit."

Related

• /help/designer/walk-through-and-journeys
• /help/designer/design-to-tests
• /help/designer/references-and-used-in
• /help/designer/present-a-design