Flows: what happens on its own

A flow is something your application does on its own when something happens: email the customer when a job is completed, tell the office when an invoice is raised, check every morning for visits that were never booked. You find your flows under What it is, on the Flows tab.

Owners, admins and editors can change flows. Anyone else who can open the application can look at them.

Read a flow

Each flow is drawn as a diagram.

• The first box is what starts it, such as "when a job is created".
• The other boxes are its steps, in order, joined by arrows. Hover over (or tap) a box to see what it does, and an arrow to see what is handed along it.
• A decision splits the flow into two paths, Yes and No, depending on the record.
• A wait pauses the flow for a while before the next step.

If there is more than one flow, choose which to show from the Flow list. On a phone, the diagram is shown as a list, and a box's details open below it.

Change a flow

Press a box to open it in the panel beside the diagram. Everything there is changed by picking from lists, not by typing rules:

• The first box lets you change what starts the flow, whose permissions it runs with, and add a condition under Only carry on if, so it only runs sometimes.
• A decision box lets you set when to Take the Yes path if.
• A step lets you change its details, such as who an email goes to or which field it sets. An email step shows the email as it would be sent.
• Where a step can be undone, If a later step fails, undo this by… lets you choose what should happen to put it right if a later step fails for good.
• Remove this step takes a step out.

To add a step, press the + on an arrow where it should go, and pick from the short list under What should happen here? The choices depend on the flow and your records, and include:

• Send an email, using one of your application's messages,
• Change a field on the record,
• Create a new record of another kind,
• Wait, before the next step,
• Decide, to take one path or another,
• Do two things at once, and carry on when both are done,
• For each related record, up to 50,
• Let other flows know, so any flow listening for it starts,
• run another flow's steps here.

Each pick goes into your draft straight away. The diagram shows the flow as it will be, and How it was before your change shows it as it is now.

Try this flow

Under Try this flow, choose a Record and press Try this flow. The flow plays along the arrows with a made-up record, never one of your customers', so you can see which way it goes and what each step would do. Nothing is sent or saved.

You can try a new flow too, before it has been approved.

Start a new flow

Press New flow at the top of the Flows tab. There are three short steps.

1. What starts it. Choose one: When a record is created, When a record changes, When a form is submitted, On a schedule or When something happens, such as a job being completed. Then choose which record, form, time or event. When a date arrives is shown but you can't choose it yet; use a schedule for now.
2. Who it runs as. Nobody is signed in while a flow runs, so it acts with the permissions of one of your application's roles: it can see and change what that role can, whoever started it. The role with the least access that can still do the job is chosen for you. A role that can do more than some of the people who can start the flow is marked as needing our team's approval. You can still choose it: someone on our team then approves the change, rather than you, because it would let people reach more through the flow than they can themselves.
3. Its name. One is suggested from what starts it. Call it whatever your team would.

Press Start this flow. The diagram opens with just the first box and a +, marked as new and not saved yet. Add what it does with the +, as above. A flow with no steps can't be asked for: the draft says so until you add one.

Or start from a common flow

Below the three steps, Or start from a common flow offers ready-made flows in your application's own words, such as emailing a customer when a new record is created for them. Each opens as a draft with its steps filled in, for you to change. One your application can't make yet is greyed out, with the reason.

Describe it instead

You don't have to build a flow by hand. Press Describe what should happen, say what you want in your own words, for example "when a quote is accepted, email the office", and press Ask Divvent. Divvent's AI proposes the change, and it comes back on this screen as the same diagram, before and after. Follow Read and decide on this change to approve or decline it.

This works for a new flow or for changing the one on screen. It is a question to the AI, so it counts against your AI budget like asking on Changes. See Ask for a change.

Review this change

Every pick joins one draft. When it is ready, press Review this change. It opens the change's page, where you read what it does and approve it. See Read a change and approve it.

• Start again throws the draft away.
• The same draft is shared with the Pages, Permissions and Change the model tabs, so one change can include edits from each.
• A change that makes a flow run with more access than the people who start it is always approved by our team, and the change's page lists it on its own line.

Approving makes a new version. The flow starts running once that version is released: see Release a version.