Product
Workflows
On this page you can learn what a workflow is, how to create one, and how it runs.
Learn this page in your AI agent
Open it in Claude or ChatGPT and ask anything about it, or copy the Markdown and use it in any AI agent.
What a workflow is
A workflow is a business process that the Ask agent executes for you from start to finish. It is defined with the PROCESS.md format and its related asset files. Learn more at the PROCESS.md page.
Every time a workflow starts, Askpilot opens a session for it. The session is where the work happens and where you can follow each action the Ask agent took.
Create a workflow
Picture: the Create new workflow form, with Access, Name, Description, the Workflow field for the PROCESS.md, the Assets drop zone, Trigger, and the Cancel and Create buttons.
Click Workflows in the left sidebar, then New. If you already have a workflow ready, a folder with a PROCESS.md file, including any related asset files and folders, drag and drop the whole folder onto the form and Askpilot prepopulates the workflow, the assets, the name and the description. If not, fill in the form that opens, top to bottom.
- Access. Who the workflow runs for and who can see it.
- Only me. The workflow runs only for you and is visible only to you.
- Shared. Pick a member of your organization. The workflow is visible to every member who can access and manage shared workflows, but the Ask agent runs it only for the member you picked. Who can view, create and manage shared workflows depends on their role. See Roles and permissions.
Picture: the Access field set to Shared, with the member dropdown open to pick the Askpilot user the workflow runs for.
- Name and description. A short name in lower case with hyphens, such as
lead-qualification, and a clear summary of what the workflow is for. The Ask agent sees both, so it knows which workflows it has access to and what each one does. - Workflow. The PROCESS.md file itself, where you describe the work to be executed. Learn more about how to create one at the PROCESS.md page.
- Assets. Drop a folder of files that complement the PROCESS.md, for example a contract template.
- Trigger. What starts the workflow.
- Manually (start in the session). You must start the workflow yourself by clicking Run workflow in the left sidebar and sending a message, as Manually under Start a workflow explains.
- A source. Choose a webhook event from a connected source, and it starts this workflow automatically every time it arrives. The form asks for three things.
- Integration. The source type, Street CRM for example.
- Source. The connected source, for example one of your Street CRM sources if you have multiple.
- Events and filters. One or more of the events the source supports, listed on its Webhook events tab. You can add filters for each event, so the trigger only fires for the events you want. A filter is a field of the event, a condition (is, is not, has, doesn’t have or has no related session in Open) and a value, which the last one doesn’t need. For example, fire only if the email address is mark@company.com. All conditions must match for the trigger to fire. has no related session in Open stops the workflow from starting again for something it’s already working on: with Contact phone has no related session in Open, a customer who sends three WhatsApp messages starts the workflow once, not three times. Avoid duplicate sessions below explains how it works.
Some sources need their webhook events set up in the toolFor certain source types, webhook events have to be set up and enabled manually in the connected tool itself. When that is the case, the Trigger step of the workflow form shows the webhook URLs to register there and the steps to follow. - API. The workflow can be started from your own systems with one request. See Start workflows through the API.
- Sources. Select the sources the Ask agent will use to execute this workflow. This field shows up when the trigger is a source or the API. For a workflow with a manual trigger, you select the sources in the message box when you run it.
Picture: the Sources field of the form with its dropdown open, listing every source you can select for the workflow, with Select all at the top.
- Auto-run until completion. Off by default. Choose a frequency, Hourly, Daily, Weekly or Monthly, and the Ask agent re-runs each session at that frequency until every task is done, only stopping for the approvals and questions the workflow itself asks for. The preferred way to use auto-run, though, is to tell the Ask agent in the PROCESS.md when the session should continue: it then sets or changes auto-run itself, for example to schedule a follow-up once at an exact time in the future, which this form does not offer. Learn more about how auto-run works and when to use it at Continuing a session automatically.
- Create. Click Create at the bottom of the form. The workflow appears in the list, switched on, and is ready to run.
Avoid duplicate sessions
Picture: the filter of a WhatsApp trigger’s Message Received event, with Contact phone picked and the condition list open on has no related session in Open, under Sessions.
Every event that passes a trigger’s filters starts the workflow. So a customer who sends three WhatsApp messages, or a CRM that sends the same record twice, starts it three times or twice. To stop that, add a filter on the field that identifies the work, such as the conversation, the phone number or the client, and pick has no related session in Open under Sessions in the condition list. It needs no value.
When an event arrives, Askpilot then checks whether this workflow already has a session in Open for the same value in that field: the same conversation, phone number, client, or anything else the event carries. If it does, the workflow doesn’t start again. Once that session is in Done, the next event starts a new one.
- Only sessions started by a trigger count. Sessions in Done don’t, and neither do sessions you started manually or through the API.
- Pick a field that stays the same. A conversation or a phone number works well. A status can change while the workflow runs, and tags can hold several values, so a later event may not match the open session and may start a new one. The form warns you on fields like these.
- Let the session finish. While the session is in Open, the workflow won’t start again for the same conversation or number. The Ask agent marks the session done once every todo is done, or you can tell it when in the PROCESS.md, for example “mark the session done once the customer’s question is answered”.
- The open session doesn’t get the event by itself. An event this condition stops goes nowhere, unless the open session subscribed to it in the Events section of its PROCESS.md. That’s how the session gets the customer’s next message.
- See what it held back. The workflow’s Trigger events tab lists the events of its trigger. An event the condition held back shows Not started: already open in, with a link to the session that is already working on it.
Example
- Requirement
- A WhatsApp support workflow should handle each customer in one session, however many messages they send.
- Solution
- The trigger on new WhatsApp messages has the filter Contact phone has no related session in Open. The PROCESS.md tells the Ask agent to listen for that customer’s next messages and to mark the session done once their question is answered. The first message starts the session, the next ones continue it, and the first message after it’s done starts a new one.
Example
- Requirement
- A Front workflow should handle each conversation in one session, whether the team assigns the conversation to the Askpilot agent or @mentions it there.
- Solution
- The trigger has Agent assigned and Agent mentioned, and each of them has the filter Conversation has no related session in Open. Whichever comes first starts the session, and the other is held back while that session is in Open. To hear about a later mention or a new message in that conversation, the PROCESS.md subscribes the session to those events, filtered to its conversation.
Start a workflow
A workflow can start in three ways. However it starts, it opens a session, listed in the left sidebar under Open, and runs with the settings that were selected for it. The Sessions page explains how to follow the session and how to answer when the Ask agent needs an input from you.
Only the Askpilot user who has access to a workflow can start it manually. When a trigger or the API starts it, it is visible to and runs only for that user, and other users do not see the session. If a team or the whole company should run and see a workflow, give access to a user that stands for them, as the Ask agent page explains.
Example
- Requirement
- The whole marketing team should be able to run the campaign-brief workflow and follow its sessions.
- Solution
- Invite a user for the team, marketing@company.com, and set the workflow’s Access to that user. Its Ask agent runs the workflow in sessions the team can open, whether the team starts it or a trigger does.
Manually
Picture: the Run workflow screen. The message box has a workflow selected on its Run line, a Context line with the details for this run, the Sources and Auto-run dropdowns, and the send button.
An Askpilot user who has access to a workflow can start it from Run workflow, even if its trigger is not set to manual.
- Click Run workflow in the left sidebar.
- In the message box:
- select the workflow the Ask agent will run,
- add any context the workflow needs to run properly, the phone number of the contact for example,
- select the sources the Ask agent will use to execute the workflow,
- enable auto-run if the session should re-run on a repeating schedule until every task is done, or once at a date and time you pick.
- Send. A session opens under Open and the Ask agent starts.
On a trigger
Picture: the Workflows list under Workflows in the left sidebar, with each workflow’s name, who has access to it, its trigger, when it was last updated, its on/off switch and its row menu. The Trigger column shows the source event that starts each workflow.
A workflow whose trigger is a source event starts on its own. When the event arrives from the connected tool and passes the filters, Askpilot opens a session for the Askpilot user who has access and the Ask agent executes the workflow with the enabled sources and, if auto-run is enabled, on its schedule. If the filter uses has no related session in Open, the workflow doesn’t start again while it already has a session in Open for the same value in the field you picked: the same conversation, phone number, client, or anything else the event carries, as Avoid duplicate sessions explains. A workflow that is switched off does not run.
The trigger is set in the Trigger step of the form.
Through the API
Picture: the Workflows list under Workflows in the left sidebar, with each workflow’s name, who has access to it, its trigger, when it was last updated, its on/off switch and its row menu. One workflow has the API as its trigger.
Start a workflow from any system of yours with one API request, passing the context the workflow needs to run. The workflow must have the API trigger and be switched on. Learn more at Start workflows through the API or in the API reference.
Where to find and manage your workflows
The workflows you create are available under Workflows in the left sidebar, which lists each one with its name and trigger icon, who has access to it, when it was last updated, and a switch that turns the workflow on or off. Only a workflow that is switched on can be started. The menu at the end of a row opens a dropdown with two options, Edit to open the workflow’s Settings tab and Delete to remove the workflow.
Picture: a workflow page on its Workflow tab, with the access line, the PROCESS.md dropdown that also lists the asset files, and the file rendered section by section.
A workflow page has three tabs.
- Workflow. A preview of the workflow: who has access to it and its PROCESS.md, rendered section by section. Click the file name above it to select one of the workflow’s asset files and preview that instead.
- Trigger events. The events that reached the workflow’s trigger on the day you pick in the date box, newest first, each with its time, the event, its value in the field that uses has no related session in Open, for example the conversation or the phone number, and what happened: Started and the session it opened, or Not started: already open in and the session that held it back, as Avoid duplicate sessions explains. Click a session to open it. A day without events shows No events on this day.
- Settings. The same form you filled in when you created the workflow. Change what you need and click Save. A session that is already open follows the saved file from its next run. Asset files cannot be edited or removed one by one. To change them, select or drop a new folder, a file or multiple files onto Assets: every file the workflow already has is removed and the new ones are added.
Picture: a Front workflow on its Trigger events tab, with the day’s events newest first. Its trigger gives Agent assigned and Agent mentioned the filter Conversation has no related session in Open, so the later events for cnv_8k2m4p1 show Not started: already open in, with a link to the session that is working on it.