Workflows in a room

A room arrives knowing some of its work

A workflow is a run of steps that ends in something you can use: a week of posts drafted, ten accounts with a first email each, an audit with its fixes in order. Six of the rooms you can add come with workflows already built for their team, so the first useful run is one press away.

Each one is published in your workspace when the room is added, so it also appears in the Workflows list on the Agent Workbench. Nothing runs until a person picks it. Each step is done by the room's lead, using what the workspace knows about your brand, offering and audience. Change your copy in the workflow editor and it stays yours: a later install never overwrites it.

Where the workflows are

Open the room from Teams, press the faces at the top to open the member list, and choose the Agents and tools tab. Under the agents sits Workflows: "Pick one to run now. Each one can keep running on its schedule."

Each card shows the workflow's name and what it makes. The ones that suit a first hour carry Good first run and are listed first. A room with none installed says No workflows are set up for this room yet.

Each card has three controls:

A workflow with no schedule or event says Runs when you ask in place of the switch. While a schedule is on, the card says when it runs next under the switch, for example Next run Mon 12 Oct, 09:00 IST.

A workflow the lead adds from a meeting's minutes is one of the room's workflows too, with its own card. It can be started, test run and scheduled the same way. See huddles.

Run now

The room is told at once: "Started Weekly social plan with posts drafted. Each step shows below as it finishes, and the result posts in this room when the run ends." A start goes through the same checks as any work in the room, so a workflow can be held for a person. The card then says Waiting for approval before it starts. and the run waits in approvals and the Inbox.

Test run, free model

A test run proves the plumbing: the steps run in order, the card fills in the room and the result posts where it should. It runs on a free model and may only read your workspace's own records, such as the Knowledge Hub, your brand voice, your leads and your visibility findings. It does not search the web or call a connected tool, so expect a thinner result than a real run. The room's start line says it was started "as a test run on a free model".

Only workflows whose steps each run one agent can be test run. Every prebuilt workflow can. A workflow you build with other kinds of step is refused with the reason.

Keep running

Switch it on and the workflow runs on its schedule, or when its event happens, and posts each result in the room. Switch it off and it runs only when someone asks. Switching on at 09:03 does not run the 09:00 it just missed: the first run is the next one shown on the card.

Every prebuilt schedule starts switched off, in your workspace's time zone. That is the zone of the workspace's longest serving admin, the one their browser gave when they signed up, or India time (IST) when none is known. A schedule keeps its zone through daylight saving.

Only a published workflow can keep running. Turning on one that is not published is refused with "This workflow is not published yet, so its schedule stays off. Publish it, then turn the schedule on."

Turning a schedule on needs permission to set up the room; without it the switch is greyed out. Running a workflow needs permission to act in the room; without it, Run now and the test button are not shown.

Say it instead of pressing it

Each control can be typed in the room, as long as you name one of this room's workflows exactly, by its title:

• "run Competitor social scan" starts it.
• "keep running Competitor social scan" or "turn on the schedule for Competitor social scan" switches its schedule on.
• "pause Competitor social scan" switches it off.

The room answers with what it did. A sentence that names no workflow of the room stays ordinary work for the lead.

Schedule it with a sentence

You can also give a workflow a new schedule in one sentence, with how often and, if you like, what time. In Prompt World's MOXA team room:

schedule Competitor social scan every Friday at 4pm

The room's lead saves it and replies:

Scheduled: every Friday at 16:00 IST. Next run Fri 16 Oct.

When no next run can be worked out, the reply stops after the time: "Scheduled: every Monday at 09:00 IST."

What the sentence needs:

• One of run, start, schedule or kick off, as in "run Newsletter issue every Monday".
• How often: every day, every weekday, every week, or one named day such as "every Friday" or "on Tuesdays". Every week means Mondays.
• A time, if you want one: "at 9", "9am", "9:30 pm", "17:30" or "noon". With no time it runs at 09:00.
• The workflow's exact title, one of this room's workflows.

"Every day", "daily" and "nightly" mean all seven days, the same as the prebuilt Every day at 09:00 schedules. "Every weekday", "every business day" and "on weekdays" mean Monday to Friday, and the reply says which you got: "Scheduled: every weekday at 08:00 IST." A monthly schedule cannot be set in a sentence; change it on the workflow's page in the Agent Workbench.

The time is read in your own time zone, or India time (IST) when none is known. Saving replaces the workflow's schedule, switches it on and sends each result to this room. The card's switch then reads, for example, Keep running: Competitor social scan, every Friday at 16:00.

Anyone in the room can say it, but only a person with permission to set up the room can save it. Without it the room says "Turning a schedule on needs permission to set up this room." A workflow that is not published is refused with "This workflow is not published yet, so its schedule stays off. Publish it, then turn the schedule on."

The room does not read a schedule from a question, from a sentence that says don't, stop, pause or cancel, from a message over one line, or from one that could mean two workflows. A sentence that names none of the room's workflows gets an ordinary reply from the lead.

Start the next job when work is accepted (Beta)

A chain starts one agent or workflow when another's work is accepted. Say it in the room in one sentence:

when DRIS finishes, have HOOK draft the ads

after Competitor social scan is done, run Newsletter issue

The first name can be any agent you know by name, or one of this room's workflows. The second must be an agent on this room's team, since its job runs here, or one of this room's workflows. After an agent you say what its job is, as in "draft the ads". The lead replies with one card, for example "I can set this chain up: When DRIS's work is accepted, then HOOK: draft the ads, in this room. Approve the card to switch it on." Once it is approved, its result reads "Chain on:" and the chain.

Accepted means the lead approved an agent's room job at its review, or a person gave a workflow run a thumbs up on its run file. A job that fails, is rejected or only finishes starts nothing.

A chain runs at most 3 steps, and never runs the same trigger twice in one chain. At the limit the lead posts "This chain ended at its limit of 3 steps", names what was not started, and says to ask again in the room if you want it run.

Setting one up needs permission to set up the team, which a workspace admin holds. Without it the room says "Setting up a chain needs permission to set up this team, which a workspace admin holds." Like a schedule sentence, a chain is not read from a question, from a sentence that says don't, never, stop, pause or cancel, from a message over one line, or from one where a name could mean two agents or workflows.

An agent's chains are listed on its Triggers tab in the Agent Workbench, where each one can be switched off.

Each step shows as it runs

A card sits under the start line and follows the run. Its first line says Working until the run ends. Under it is one line per step, with the step's name and its state: waiting, working, needs approval, done, failed or skipped. Once a step has written something, the start of it shows beneath the step, so you can read the work as it arrives.

When the run ends, the card's first line becomes one of these:

What each room carries

The schedule is what Keep running turns on, at that time in your workspace's time zone. Workflows marked Good first run are listed first on the cards.

DRIS team

HOOK team

MOXA team

Echo team

NORA team

Nothing NORA's workflows draft is sent. Drafts wait for you.

Content

Asking several teammates at once

You can also start a run without a workflow, by naming two or more agents in one message:

@NORA find five companies that fit our ICP, @RIVA tell me which open deals have gone quiet

The room splits the message by name, and each teammate works on the part addressed to it, side by side. Text before the first name goes to nobody; if a name has nothing after it, as in "@NORA @RIVA review the pipeline", every teammate gets the whole message. The room says who is working on what: "Each teammate you named is working on their part:", then one line each, then "When they finish I review what they did and post one answer here." The same step card follows each part.

At most six teammates start from one message. A teammate that is not on the team, is switched off, is over its budget, or has no tools or instructions to work from is left out, and the start line names it under Left out:. If fewer than two are left, the message goes to the one that is, as a single mention would.

The lead reads the work before you do

Nothing the parts produce reaches you until the room's lead has read it. The lead then does one of three things:

• Writes the answer from what the parts produced, and posts it once.
• Builds what was missing. If a part did not happen because the team lacked something, the lead can bring onto the team an agent the workspace already has, create a new agent reporting to it, write a skill, or build a workflow, and then run that part again. The room says "Before answering, I made what the work was missing:" with what was made. Each change is recorded under the lead's name.
• Asks you for a connection. An agent never connects an account. If the work needs one, the room says "This needs a person to connect" the account, so connect it and ask again.

The lead builds and reruns once. If something is still missing after that, the room posts "This is as far as the team could take it." with what is still missing and what each part reported. If the budget will not cover the review, the room says so and posts what each part reported as it stands.

When a run ended without the lead answering the request, the card says so rather than claiming a result: Ended without an answer to the request.

Where to go next

• Long-running work: jobs that take minutes or hours, and Stop.
• The team room: the room these cards live in.
• Agent Workbench: the Workflows list and the editor.
• Triggers and webhooks: the events a workflow can start on.