Automating Your Business Processes
For a look into more complex WorkFlows please see our video on creating complex WorkFlows Here.
Hi, I’m Allie, our AI-powered, training personality.
Transcript
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Today we are going to take a look at Workflows. First of all, what are Workflows? To put it simply, Workflows are the automated process behind events that happen within Web Geeks marketing Platform.
Workflows make it easy to create automation with triggers and actions and are similar to campaigns and triggers but with many more capabilities. Workflows also have capabilities like using if-else statements, wait times, Math functions, and so much more. Overall, workflows offer a more powerful and comprehensive automation solution than campaigns and triggers. In fact, campaigns and triggers can be imported into workflows to provide a more streamlined automation process.
Would your business benefit from a set order for your business processes? Would you like to initiate a funnel movement by clicking on a link in an email? Would you just like to enhance your marketing campaigns? Well, all this and so much more can be accomplished by having a workflow in place.
Let’s take a look into the workflow area of our platform and see what it is all about.
Let’s get started,
To get to the WorkFlow area you just need to head on over to automation in the left-hand sidebar. Here you will find a list of all of the workflows you have already created and the option to create more.
Let’s start with creating a new Workflow, once you click on the create new workflow button you will find yourself with a range of options. You can start by creating a workflow from scratch. You can import from campaign, this option allows you to take all of the steps within an already created campaign and import them into a WorkFlow to create a more seamless experience for your campaigns. And finally, you have the option to use already crafted recipes.
Recipes are the workflow equivalent of a template. By using a recipe, you can quickly customise an existing WorkFlow allowing you to automate everyday processes. This option is incredibly useful if you have had little to no experience with workflows in the past. For those who are experienced with workflows, these can be used to save a little time.
Today we are going to start from scratch to show you the very basic elements of a workflow. So let’s open this up.
When you first arrive in the workflow builder you will find, a very empty screen. All we really have is a box here at the top. This is a trigger box. Triggers are how WorkFlows are initiated. Just like people, we normally need a reason to do what we do. You may also call a trigger an event. To add a trigger, you just have to click on the “add new trigger” box. This will open up a menu allowing you to pick a trigger.
What you choose depends on what you want this workflow to do. Do you want it to activate when you get a message? When someone fills in a survey? Or something else? All triggers are grouped inside categories so you know which type of trigger they are or which part of the system they are coming from. All you have to do is scroll down through this menu, pick your desired trigger then make any further specifications inside the trigger. If you already know the trigger you want to use, you can just use the search function. So, say we want the workflow to activate when a survey is submitted, we can just search for it here then click the survey submitted trigger which will open up a menu where we can make further specifications. In this particular trigger, we can add filters to tell the workflow which survey we want to use to activate this workflow. So here we just select “survey is” and then pick which survey we are using. However, other types of triggers will have different options depending on what it is.
Once you are done just click on “save trigger” to add it to the workflow.
The next step of a workflow is an action. An action is something that you want the workflow to do in response to a trigger. To add an action, all you have to do is click the plus sign underneath your trigger. Again, you will open up a menu with a list, this time a list of actions. Just like before, all the actions are grouped into categories depending on what they do, or what part of the system they relate to. You can scroll through these to find exactly what you want the action to do.
So, if the workflow is being triggered by a survey being submitted, perhaps you want someone to be notified of this. So to create the notification, I am going to use a “send internal notification” action, so lets search for that. The system will then ask me what type of notification I want to send, and where I would like to send it. So if I were to select email, I would be given fields to fill out, to make sure that it goes to the place I would like it to go, and that the person I am sending it to knows what the notification is about.
So let’s start by adding a name in the “from” section. I’ll just put “system” for now . Then I am going to add in the email of where the notification is coming from. So you would just type in your designated email for alerts. I’ll just add mine in here.
Then, “user type” allows you to select if you would like to send the email to all users, the assigned user, a particular user or a custom email. For now, i am going to go with a particular user, then below i can choose the user i would like to receive it. Then you want to add a subject to your email, so i am just going to use “survey submitted”. Then if you like you can choose a template if you have already made one. However, for now I am just going to add a message into the box. So, let’s go with “Survey 0 submitted please check details”.
Then, you can use the test email function to see what the email will look like. All you have to do is input the desired email and click send. You can then view that email in the conversations tab of the platform. Then we just have to click save action to input this action into the workflow.
Then I am going to save my workflow. And run a test on it to see if it works. So we just have to click the test workflow button next to save. Then select the contact I want to test it on, then click run. There are two ways you can check this workflow. One is by going to the conversations tab again, or you can look at the stats of the internal notification, which will then tell you if the notification has been delivered and if any links in the notification have been clicked on, as well as other stats. to see a more detailed view just click on the stats area underneath your notification. Then, all that is left to do is publish your workflow. This will make it start working within the system and do the job you have assigned to it.
And there you have it. You now know the key elements of creating a workflow, actions and triggers, and how to edit them and implement them into a workflow. You have also just created your first working workflow. There are so many options when it comes to workflows, and they really can do so many things. With the power of automation at your fingertips, you can make life so much easier for you and your team members. For a deeper look into workflows, please check out some of our other videos on the topic.