Workflows
Forest Admin Workflows let you map your operational processes in our no-code editor, leveraging your data, actions, and 3rd party apps to ensure reliable, secure, and efficient executions.
Creating & Managing Workflows
Like all UI customization features in Forest Admin, Workflows can be created and managed by users with the Admin, Developer, or Editor permission level.
Getting Started
The quickest way to create a new workflow is through our Customization Center (Edit Layout > + Add New).
Alternatively, you can add a new Workflow directly from your Collection Settings, using the "+ NEW" button in the Workflows tab.
The Workflow Editor
This is where you get to define and map your operational process, without worrying about any of the technical aspects.
Interface Overview
The Workflow Editor is made up of the following main elements:
The Toolbar, on the left, is where you'll find the Steps available to build your Workflow.
The Canvas, in the center, is where you build the flow of your process.
The Settings Panel, on the right, is where you can configure the Step(s) currently selected in the canvas.
The Header is mainly where you can Save your workflow, after fixing any issues raised in the Errors Panel.
Steps
A workflow is a series of Steps, some of which are entirely manual, i.e. the end user will simply have to carry out the instruction provided to them, while AI-powered steps will provide some extra help to the end user by surfacing the relevant Data or Actions at runtime.
The following Steps are at your disposal to map your process into a Forest Admin Workflow; let's focus first on our native tasks (* denotes AI-powered tasks):
Guidance Tasks provide instructions to the end user on how to complete the step.
Trigger Action* tasks provide the end user with the Action required to complete the step.
Get Data* tasks retrieve the value of a field, display it to the end user, and load it in the workflow context.
Update Data* tasks provide the end user with a way to Update the value of a field.
Decision steps split your workflow into separate branches, based on a condition.
Go To steps can loop back to a previous step, jump to another branch, or step into another workflow.
Groups let you organize multiple steps into a group, for improved readability.
End steps mark the end of a branch, and the completion of a workflow.
MCP Tasks* let the end user perform an action in a 3rd party app, via the corresponding MCP Server.
To see each Step type in action, head to the Workflow Execution section.
Managing Workflows
Existing workflows can be managed from the relevant Collection settings, in the Workflows tab. From there, you can rename a workflow, restrict its availability to a subset of Segments, and access the Workflow Editor.
By default, Workflows are available when selecting a single record from the List View; you can toggle their visibility and re-order them in the Layout Editor.
Workflows can also be made available in Summary Views and Workspaces.
Executing Workflows
Workflows can be executed from the List View (on a single record), the Summary or Details view of a record, or from a Workspace.
AI-powered Steps
The Get Data, Update Data, Trigger Action, and MCP Task steps aim to provide end users with the tools they need to efficiently execute actions in Forest Admin and 3rd party apps.
Any time one of these steps is completed, the workflow context gathers more information, increasing Forest Admin's AI ability to help complete the execution, for example by pre-filling fields when updating data, or composing an email with the relevant information when notifying a customer via a 3rd party app such as Zendesk.
Every AI-Powered step provides a "Handle Manually" option, to enable users to bypass the suggestion if they deem it not relevant, or if it encountered an error. Subsequent steps would however lack the context, potentially impacting the rest of the workflow.
Saving & Resuming
During the execution, a workflow can be closed at any time, prompting the user to either Save it, or Abort it.
Saved workflows can be picked by another user, after any length of time.
They're resumed automatically when triggered from a record's Summary View or a Workspace, and can be resumed from the "To Continue" section, when accessed from the List or Record View.
Revising Steps
Workflows help reduce mistakes in complex processes, but errors may still happen! If you need to correct something, you can always go back and revise a completed step.
After completing a step, click the Revise button to redo it. Since workflows can branch based on your choices, revising a step will cancel any steps completed after it. This ensures the workflow follows the correct path based on your updated input.
In the screenshot below, the user is revising the "Lookup on Infogreffe" step. The two steps completed after it ("Get Contact email" and "Notify customer") are now cancelled, allowing the workflow to proceed correctly from this point.
Security & Auditing
As everything in Forest Admin, our workflow feature is built upon our robust Roles & Permissions system. Although anyone can trigger a Workflow, Data and Actions will only be made available to users whose Role allows them to.
Every completed and aborted workflow executions can be found in the workflow list, for a given record, and can be opened in read-only mode to see its execution in more details.
Every interaction within a workflow execution is recorded in your Activity Logs, available in the Reports tab, or through our public API.
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