Workflow Designer
Design workflows visually with a drag-and-drop canvas.
Canvas overview
The workflow designer is where you build your workflow visually: drag steps onto the canvas, draw lines between them to set the order, and add decision points where the path should branch.
Key areas
- Steps panel (left): drag steps and decisions onto the canvas
- Canvas (center): arrange your workflow and draw lines between steps
- Configuration panel (right): settings for whichever step or line you've selected
- Toolbar (top): save, publish, share, and undo/redo
Adding steps
Open the Steps panel on the left. Drag any step onto the canvas, or click it to drop it in the middle. The library is organised into three groups:
- Core, the everyday steps: forms, approvals, Rules, and Outcomes
- Multi-Instance: for cases where you need to score or compare several submissions at once (e.g., vendor bids or grant proposals)
- Automation steps, which run on their own: send emails, call other systems, do calculations, or save data
The Multi-Instance and Automation steps sections are collapsed by default to keep the sidebar tidy. Click a section header to open it.
Connecting steps
Hover over a step to see its connection handles. Click and drag from a handle to another step to draw a line between them. That line tells the workflow where to go next.
- Each line is a path the workflow can take
- Click a line to give it a label or turn it into a loop-back
- You can connect any step to any other step
- Loop-back lines (sending work back to an earlier step) show up in orange and dashed, so they're easy to spot
Configuration panel
Click any step to open its settings on the right. The panel is organised into tabs:
Tabs
- General: name, description, and an Advanced area for deadlines and display options
- Assignments: who handles this step (a specific person, a team, a role, or a rule), plus Advanced options for how the work is distributed
- Actions: the buttons reviewers see (Approve, Reject, etc.) and what they look like
- Form: create, pick, or edit the form attached to this step
- Visibility: on approval steps, choose which pieces of information the reviewer sees
- Notifications: emails sent when this step starts or ends
Rules (decision points)
A Rule is a decision point shaped like a diamond. When the workflow reaches one (say, "auto-approve if amount < $1,000"), it reads the data so far and picks the right path automatically.
- Each path has a name, a rule, and a priority order
- Paths are checked in order, and stepbase takes the first one that matches
- Either mark one path as the default fallback, or give every path its own rule
- Build rules with the visual Condition Builder: no code, just pick fields and operators
Undo and redo
The designer maintains a full undo/redo history. Use Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y (or Cmd on Mac) or the toolbar buttons. Every change to the workflow is tracked.
Publishing
When your workflow is ready, click Publish in the toolbar. stepbase checks it for common problems before going live:
- Every step has a line going out (otherwise the workflow would get stuck)
- Every Rule has a default path to fall back on
- Form steps actually have a form attached
- Every interactive step has someone assigned to it
Each time you publish, you create a new version. Submissions already in progress stay on the version they started with, so your changes only apply to new submissions.
Import and export
Forms and automations can be exported as JSON files and imported into other workspaces. This is useful for sharing templates and migrating between environments.
Automation steps
Automation steps run on their own as the workflow passes through them, with no human action needed. For example, after a form is submitted, an automation step can save the information to a table, email the team, or call an external system before the next person gets the task.
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Read or write data | Automatically read from or save to your company's data (employee records, budgets, vendor tables) |
| Transform | Calculate a value from earlier answers (totals, days elapsed, formatted text) and make it available to later steps |
| Send email | Send an email to a user, team, or external address |
| Call a connector | Call an external system: a CRM, HR platform, or any web API |
Testing a connector before you publish
Once you've set up a Call a connector step, click Test Connector in the configuration panel to make sure it works before going live. A dialog opens listing every value the connector needs:
- Fixed values are filled in automatically
- Values that normally come from earlier steps will need a sample value to test with, because that data doesn't exist yet at design time
- Click Run Test to call the connector with your sample values
- You'll see whether it succeeded, the response from the other system, and how long it took
AI chat
The AI chat bar at the bottom of the designer lets you generate or modify workflows using natural language prompts.
- Describe a new workflow and AI generates all of it
- Ask to add, remove, or reconfigure steps by describing the change
- Generated workflows are loaded directly onto the canvas for review and editing
- Use undo (Ctrl+Z) to revert AI-generated changes