Workflow automation allows you to work smarter not harder by automating many manual processes within aXcelerate and allowing you to spend time on more important tasks. You are able to automatically send emails and SMS to your contacts, invoice for payment plans, generate and send reports, send surveys and create tasks for your team.

Who can use this feature?

Administrator Users
Users with the Workflow Automated Tasks permissions
Users with the Workflow Administration permission

Note: Workflow Automation is an additional feature that is not included with a standard aXcelerate license, however, this is included in aXcelerate Turbo. For more information, please contact our Customer Success team.

Workflow triggers

There are three core trigger types available to you when sending Workflow Automated Tasks. These provide you with flexibility in when you would like your Workflow task to send.

A scheduled automated task is a task that has been set up to run at a specific time. This time could be a one-off date and time, or linked to a recurring schedule. Unlike the other two core trigger types, a schedule must be set up prior to creating your workflow task.

Note:
All automated schedules run in AEST (UTC+10) time.

A date-triggered automated task is a task that has been set to run based on dates defined in aXcelerate. There are different types of date triggered tasks depending on the action you have selected and the area of the system that it relates to

Tip: In the unlikely event of a system error, where date-triggered automated tasks were not run, they can be run again once the system is back up. Tasks whose scheduled time were more than 4 days ago will not be run.

Notes:
These tasks will run every day between 6:00 am and 11:00 pm AEST (UTC+10). If you have a date-triggered task that is scheduled to run outside of those times, it will run at 6:00 am the next morning.
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This task type only runs once per instance (workshop or enrolment) regardless of the outcome. However, it can be triggered manually.

An event-triggered automated task is a task that has been triggered to run based on another action in the system occurring. The system cannot predict exactly when this task will be executed as the event could happen at any time

Note: The action you have selected will determine which trigger types are available to you. If the trigger you would like to use is not available, you may need to use a different action or change your trigger.

Warning: Workflow Tasks that have been set up to run from a date trigger will not send in your Staging environment. We prevent this as a triggered task in the Live environment that is copied to staging (upon staging refresh) would run concurrently with the task in Live, meaning that any workflows designed to send emails would send multiple emails to each recipient. However, if a task is manually triggered, or a workflow is based on an event, such as 'On contact update', this will send in your Staging environment.

Create a schedule

Schedules can be set against most workflow actions and can be set to run at a one-off date and time, or linked to a recurring schedule (daily, weekly or monthly). Schedules can become particularly useful when you have to send content to contacts on a reoccurring basis. Creating a scheduled automated task will allow you to minimise many manual and repetitive processes.

Hover over the Automated Tasks tab
Click Schedules
Click the Plus icon
Select a Schedule Type
Enter a Schedule Name
Select a Schedule Start date
Configure your Schedule Settings
Enter any other applicable details into the form
Click Save Schedule

Tip: In order to set a schedule against an automated task, this will need to be set up prior to creating your task.

Update a schedule

Hover over the Automated Tasks tab
Click Schedules
Click the Update icon
Make changes as required
Click Save Schedule

Note: Updating an existing schedule will affect any automated tasks currently linked after the last scheduled task has been run.

Delete a schedule

Hover over the Automated Tasks tab
Click Schedules
Click the Delete icon
Click Okay

Note: You will not be able to delete a schedule if it is currently being used by an automated task.

Warning: You cannot retrieve a deleted schedule once it has been deleted.

Create a single step automated task

All workflow automated tasks have the same core steps in creation, however, there may be additional steps required depending on the workflow action selected.

Hover over the Automated Tasks tab and click New Automated task
Or
Click the Automated Tasks tab and click the Plus icon
Enter a Name
Select an Action
Configure your When to Run section as required
Configure your Conditions where applicable
Enter any other applicable details into the form
Click Save Automated Task

Note: For specific steps on exactly how to create your workflow based on the action selected, please see our article on Workflow Actions.

Warning: Tasks will run as close as possible to the scheduled time; however, there could be an error of several minutes on either side of the expected run time.

Create an advanced multi-step automated task

All workflow automated tasks have the same core steps in creation, however, there may be additional steps required depending on the workflow action selected. Advanced workflow tasks can complete multiple actions one after the other. These tasks can be particularly useful when you require a sequence of tasks to be completed or you wish the system to retry actions that have failed.

Hover over the Automated Tasks tab and click New Automated task
Or
Click the Automated Tasks tab and click the Plus icon
Enter a Name
Select an Action
Configure your Conditions where applicable
Enter any other applicable details into the form
Click the Advanced workflow tab
Select the appropriate settings for step one On Success, Retry, Retry Interval and On Failure
Click the Add a new step button
Repeat single task steps as required
Click Update Step
Select the appropriate settings for step one On Success, Retry, Retry Interval and On Failure
Repeat steps 8 - 11 as required
Configure your When to Run section as required
Click Save Automated Task

Tip: For an example of a multi-step workflow, please see our Workflow Examples webinar.

Note: For specific steps on exactly how to create your workflow based on the action selected, please see our article on Workflow Actions.

Warning: If you have selected the option 'quit reporting' On Success on the first step, the subsequent steps will not be run.

Retry automated task steps

Some automated task actions can be retried if they fail the first time. These can only be configured for advanced workflows.

Create or update an advanced automated workflow task
For each step, select the number of desired retry attempts using the Retry dropdown. You can select up to 3 retry attempts, after which the system will consider the step failed.
For each step, select the desired Retry Interval. This will be the time between retry attempts.
Click Save Automated Task

Note: Not all actions support retry. This is because some actions may succeed partially, but still report failed. An example would be Send Workshop Template. If 9 out of 10 students received their template but one student had an invalid email address, this will report in a failed status for this action. A retry will rerun the whole thing, resulting in duplicate emails for those 9 students.

Calculate the next run time

In order to determine when an automated task will run next, you can simply use this feature to generate this time for you.

Click the Automated Tasks tab
Click the Calculate button under the next run column

Note: This will only display a time for scheduled automated tasks.

View the run history

This feature will show you a complete run history for each time this workflow has been run in the past. This will include the Process Start Time and Run State.

Click the Automated Tasks tab
Click the Run History icon

Tips:
‍To see further details on a specific run time for a task, click the radio select button next to the run time you require.

To delete a specific run time from the history, click the delete icon.

Update an existing automated task

Click the Automated Tasks tab
Click the Update icon
Make changes as required
Click Save Automated Task

Delete an automated task

Click the Automated Tasks tab
Click the Delete icon
Click Okay

Warning: You cannot retrieve a deleted task once it has been deleted.

Pause an automated task

Automated tasks can be paused so that they will not run either indefinitely or until a specified date and time. A paused workflow will either show its new run time as Paused or the next date it will run.

Click the Automated Tasks tab.
Click the Update icon.
Under the When to Run section click the Pause button.
Under the Paused Until field, check Indefinitely to leave it paused or deselect this checkbox to set a time and date that you want the task to continue.
Click Save Automated Task

Note: You can unpause or resume a task at any time by following the above steps and clicking Continue and then saving the task.

Warning: Date-triggered tasks that have been paused will not run for the enrolments or workshops that were due to run during the paused phase. These tasks will show a status of Skipped in the task view for these objects.

Configure workflow task conditions

Conditions can be set in a workflow task so that the action will only be performed when the conditions have been met.

This allows you to create more specific automated tasks for particular scenarios.

For example, when using the Send Enquiry Template action, a condition can be included where the Qualification Includes a particular Qualification in your system. This would mean that this task would only send when an enquiry is made about the Qualification set in the condition and allow a qualification-specific enquiry template to be sent.

Create or update an automated workflow task
Click Add Condition
Select the condition type
Set whether the condition will Include or Exclude the selected condition type
Select a value to apply to the condition
Create additional conditions as required
Click Save Automated Task

Tip: The available conditions able to be set will change according to the Action being taken.

Note: A Scheduled workflow cannot have conditions assigned to it.

Utilise dynamic values

Some fields in workflow actions support Dynamic Values. A dynamic value is a field where the value is not known when you set up an automated task, but instead will be taken from incoming data. This could be from the event that triggered the task, or from the previous step.

Navigate to your new or existing automated task
Click the Dynamic Value button
Click the Dynamic Value drop-down
Select your applicable option (variable)

The options available in the dynamic value drop-down will depend on the data currently available in your workflow. The data available in your workflow will depend on the scope, matching types, if your trigger is a report row event and if there are special values available.

As a workflow automated task runs, it has a scope. The scope is the set of data currently available to the workflow and all actions it runs.

The data that is in the scope can be pulled from two places. The first of these is the trigger you have selected that causes your automated task to run. The second of these is the information returned from previous steps if you are using a multi-step task.
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Therefore in order to have dynamic values available in a workflow task using the scope, there must be sufficient information available in the task.

Note: For scheduled tasks, there is no incoming data to trigger the report to run. As such, unless a scheduled task is part of an advanced multi-step workflow, this will not have dynamic fields available.

The dynamic values available in the dropdown will depend on the types (of values) available for that workflow action and the type expected by the field.
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Types are either text data, numerical data or they are types which have an important meaning in aXcelerate. Examples of these types are contactID, for a contact in the system, or a PDataID for a workshop in the system.
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Once the system has identified the types available, it will then match these types to applicable available fields.

The report row event trigger type allows you to define a report that contains the dynamic variables you require. When selecting a Saved Report condition, the interface will look up what display fields are set for that report and then add these to the dropdown as the report data scope.

Within some dynamic fields there may be a special value "-- Set to Nothing --". This has been set to ensure that this field is left blank. If you leave a field blank, and there is a variable (dynamic) name within the workflow that matches the field, the workflow will set the field to the variable value.

Tip: The options available in the dynamic value drop-down will depend on the data currently available in your workflow. The data available in your workflow will depend on the action, settings you have selected and type of value expected for your workflow.

For an example of dynamic values, please see our Workflow Examples webinar.

Note: A dynamic value will not be available for all fields in a workflow task.

Utilise advanced dynamic values

If a dynamic field is not available for a text field you require, you can insert a dynamic value in any text field by using the template pattern, %variable_name%.

Navigate to your new or existing automated task
Select your Text/Message field
Click the Variable icon
Select the Variable from the drop-down
Click Okay.

Note: These variables are pulled from the scope of the workflow. For more information on the scope, see the section Utilise Dynamic Values in this guide.

Create a Report Row Event Workflow

A Report Row Event workflow is quite complex to configure but can be a very powerful automation tool if utilized correctly. A Report Row Event Workflow will run an automated task for each result in a saved report. This allows you to simultaneously make use of the reporting system to gather the data you need and the Workflow Engine to conduct actions automatically according to the data in the report. To configure this, a saved report must first be created to be used in the workflow.

Run a report
Save the report and share it internally
Create a New Automated Task
Set the Name of the workflow task
Select a workflow task Action
Click Dynamic Value
Set the Trigger Type as Report Row Event
Select the Report to use for the automated task
Set When to Run the task
Click Save Automated Task

Tip: An example of this would be to run and save a Contact Details Warehoused Report and set the workflow Action to Send Contact Template. This would send a specific template to each contact that appears in the results of the saved report.

‍Please refer to our Report Builder, Saved Reports, and Workflow Actions help articles for further information.

Note: The saved report must contain specific IDs within the report's Display Fields for a workflow to utilise. For example; "Contact ID" for the workflow to send to that contact including details relating to the contact.

Example Workflows

Here is a list of short instructional videos demonstrating how to create particular automated tasks using workflow.

Workflow Examples Webinar

This webinar demonstrates:

Sending a Template to Students in Class or Workshop
Sending Surveys on Trigger
Creating Report Row Event Triggers
Processing Online Enquiries
Sending Learner Engagement Surveys

Workflow Automation FAQ

What timezone does the Workflow engine use/is set in?

The Workflow Engine is located in the AEST timezone, so please take that into consideration when creating your Automated Tasks. Note: AEST is different from AEDT.

What hours will my Workflow tasks operate within?

To prevent communications going out at inappropriate hours, the Workflow engine operates between 6:00 am and 11:00 pm AEST (UTC+10). Note: this is different to AEDT.