Workflow Designer reference

The Workflow Designer builds workflow definitions: the stages, tasks, transitions, deadlines and triggers described in How workflows work. This page documents the screens: the workflow list and the designer itself.

Where to find it

Workspace > Business Logic > Workflows. Opening a workflow from the list opens the designer. Page key workflows.

Workflow list

Control	Description
New workflow name	Required to create.
Start from	A template, or blank. Choosing a template shows a Template preview.
Create	Creates a draft and opens it in the designer.
Describe the workflow	A sentence or two. Generate with AI drafts stages, tasks and transitions, using approver roles that exist in the workspace, and opens the draft for review. It is never published automatically.

Templates:

Template	Category
Expense approval	Finance
Leave approval	HCM
Employee onboarding	HCM
Purchase order approval	Procurement
Vendor onboarding	Procurement
Ticket escalation	Service
Discount approval	CRM

Designer layout

Area	Content
Toolbar	Back to the artifact list; artifact name; chip v<version> · <status> · rev <revision>; autosave state; Undo, Redo; Save draft; Publish; Simulate.
Identity bar	Description (edited in Properties), version dropdown, Business object (the record type the workflow acts on, which makes its fields available to conditions and mappings).
Left	The node palette (below) and the Business objects panel.
Canvas	Stages as boxes holding tasks, transitions as arrows. Canvas tools: Zoom out, Zoom in, Fit to screen, and a layout direction toggle (Top to bottom, Left to right).
Inspector (right)	Three tabs: Properties, Variables, Advanced.
Bottom dock	Tabs Comments, Configuration, Data Mapping, Runs and Versions.

Keyboard: Ctrl+Z undo, Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y redo (not while typing in a field). Edits are undoable in single steps; renaming a stage rewrites every task, transition, SLA and escalation that refers to it as one undo step.

Saving and publishing

• Autosave saves the draft when you stop editing. The toolbar shows Draft · saved or Draft · unsaved changes (autosaves when idle), or autosave paused.
• Save draft is disabled once the version is published (Already published).
• Publish is disabled while any problem exists (Publish is blocked while problems exist) and for an already published version. Warnings do not block publishing.
• If someone else saved a newer revision, the designer shows Stale draft — someone else saved a newer revision. with Reload latest and Save mine anyway.
• If review is required for the workflow and its status is not approved, publishing is refused (see Comments).

Node palette

Search filters by label and hint. Drag a tile onto a stage to add it, or select it to add to the current stage.

Group	Tiles
Structure	Stage
Triggers	Record Trigger (start when a record is created, updated or deleted), Schedule Trigger (start on a timetable), Webhook Trigger (let an outside system start it), API Trigger (start it from a script or another system)
Human Tasks	Approval
Logic	Condition (branch into Yes and No), Switch (several cases and a default), Parallel (run branches side by side, then join), For each, Calculate, Set variables
Actions	Action, API Call, Sub-workflow, Create record, Update record, Delete record, Get record
Integrations	Connector or flow
Notifications	Send email, Send SMS, Slack message, Teams message, In-app notification
Timers	Delay, Wait until
AI & Others	The AI nodes (prompt, classify, retrieve, answer from knowledge, agent, guardrail), Script, Code (JavaScript), Generate document, Export to CSV

Each tile's fields are in the Node reference.

Inspector, Properties tab

Stage

Field	Description
Stage id	The stage's name. Renaming rewrites every reference.
SLA duration (minutes)	Empty means no SLA on this stage.
On breach, route to stage	Optional. Forces the instance into this stage on breach instead of only escalating (a boundary timer).
Escalate to	The fallback approver every pending task delegates to on SLA breach.
Escalation ladder	Levels with their own delay (minutes) and target. Each level must be at least 1 minute and later than the one before, and needs someone to hand the work to.
Wait for parallel branches	Leave empty for a normal stage. Set 2 or more when branches from a parallel fork converge here: the stage runs once, when that many branches have arrived.

Task

Section	Fields
General	Task key (the idempotency identity within an instance), Task type, Stage, Max attempts (default 5).
Condition (optional)	Entry condition for the task.
Details	Depends on the type. For a sub-workflow: Target workflow name. For a node: its own fields.
On Rejection	What happens when an approver rejects.
On Return (Rework)	What happens when work is returned.
Error Handling	Retry (exponential or fixed, interval, maximum delay) and what happens when attempts run out: fail, continue or go to a stage.

Approval task

Field	Description
Candidate approvers	Roles, ${context.x} values or ${rule.name} tokens.
Approval object (by role)	Optional. Names what is being approved, for example expense.claim. The approvers are then whoever your Approval Permissions allow for it.
Amount	Picks the approval tier. A number of zero or more.
Add approver	Adds a candidate.
Approval mode	first-response, all-must-approve, quorum, majority, percentage, sequential.
Approval percentage	The share of approvers who must approve, rounded up: 60 with 5 approvers needs 3.
Quorum count	How many approvals carry the decision.
Due in (seconds)	Optional. Sets the human task's due time when dispatched.
Dynamic approver expression	Not available in this release. The runtime resolves static approver lists, ${context.x} and ${rule.x}.
Payload (JSON)	Handed to the task handler as written.

Transitions

Each transition has From stage, To stage, an optional condition (conditional and unconditional transitions are marked differently), and Parallel, which makes it fire together with every other parallel transition from the same stage. Pair a fork with a join on the converging stage.

Condition operators: eq, neq, gt, lt, gte, lte, contains, startsWith, endsWith, in, notIn, between, isEmpty, isNotEmpty, with all, any and not groups.

Inspector, Variables tab

Lists the variables the workflow reads and writes: record fields of the business object, values set by Set variables and Calculate nodes, and the results each task adds under its task key. Use them as ${context.name}.

Inspector, Advanced tab

Section	Description
Triggers	Record triggers: Entity, Event (created, updated, deleted, changed), Field with From and To for changed, and a Filter.
Webhook	Turns the webhook trigger on or off and manages its token.
Schedules	Cron, Time zone, Context and Catch up.
Identity	Workflow name (fixed after creation), Description, Metadata version.

See Start a workflow for what each trigger does.

Bottom panels

Panel	Content
Problems	Problems that block publishing (below).
Warnings	Advice that does not block publishing.
Simulate	Sample context (JSON), for example {"financeImpact": true, "managerEmail": "jane@example.com"}. Run shows the path through the stages and the approvers, forks included. A chip says Reaches completion or Does not complete, and Cycle detected — stopped early for loops. Nothing is written.
Instances	Running and finished instances of the published definition, with counts by state.
Comments	Review status (draft, in-review, changes-requested, approved), reviewer, note, and comments pinned to the design, a stage or a task. Open comments show as a count.
Configuration	Form fields the workflow collects when started.
Data Mapping	Maps workflow data to the business object's fields.
Runs	The run viewer: counts by state and the step-by-step timeline with the attempt number of each failure.
Versions	Version history with diff between versions.

Problems that block publishing

Message	Cause
A workflow definition requires a name	No name.
A workflow needs at least one stage	No stages.
A stage id cannot be blank / Stage "<id>" is declared twice	Stage naming.
A task requires a taskKey / duplicate task key	Task identity.
Task "<key>" requires a taskType	Missing type.
Task refers to an undeclared stage	A task, transition, SLA, escalation or on-error target names a stage that does not exist (SLA declared for undeclared stage "<id>").
invalid-condition messages	A condition must be an object, A condition clause requires a field, A condition clause requires a value, Operator "<op>" needs a list of values, Operator "between" needs exactly two numbers [low, high], Operator "<op>" takes a single value, not a list.
Approval problems	Human task without approvers; The approval amount must be a number of zero or more; unknown approval mode; invalid percentage; invalid quorum count.
Retry and error handling	Unknown retry backoff "<x>" (supported: exponential, fixed); Retry interval must be at least 1 second; The retry maximum delay cannot be shorter than the interval; Unknown error action "<x>" (supported: fail, continue, goto); Pick the stage to go to when this task fails.
Escalation	Level times and targets as in the stage table.
Triggers	A trigger needs the entity it watches; "<x>" is not an entity name; Unknown trigger event; A "changed" trigger needs the field it watches; bad cron; Catch up can look back at most 7 days (10080 minutes); "<zone>" is not a time zone the system knows.
Joins	Join declared for undeclared stage "<id>"; Join on stage "<id>" must wait for at least 2 branches.
Node configuration	The node's own required fields, for example a missing entity for a record node.
Required review	The review-required problem when review is required but not approved.

Permissions

Designing workflows is an authoring action on the workflow artifact type. Running them is governed by the workflow:<name> resource. See Workflow Permissions.

API and CLI

/api/v1/authoring/workflows for drafts, publishing and versions; POST /api/v1/authoring/workflows/ai-generate for AI drafts; /api/v1/workflows for running instances. CLI: erp workflow validate|test|list|instance|tasks|history and erp artifact ... --type workflows.

Related

How workflows work, Start a workflow, Node reference, Add an approval workflow.