Workflows: how automation works in Beezr

Before you start

• What is Beezr?

A workflowWorkflowAn automation: trigger plus steps, run per module; also called "flow" on the home page.Open glossary ↗ is a set of steps Beezr carries out for you when something happens, such as a purchase order being created. It can check the record, change it, ask a manager to approve it and send an email, without anyone doing those things by hand.

1. Trigger
2. Steps
3. Paths
4. End
5. Run logged

Every workflow belongs to one moduleModuleA table of business data (for example Customers) with fields, forms, views and automation.Open glossary ↗. You build it in the Designer, and people never see it. They see its results: a status that changed, a task in their inbox, an email.

○ ○ ○Beezr

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The Trigger starts the workflow. What triggers it is set on the workflow, not on this node.
Each step does one job. This one asks someone to approve.
An Approval task has two paths, Rejected and Approved.
End marks where a path stops. The + beside it adds another step.

How does a workflow start?

Each workflow has one trigger: the event that starts it. You choose it in the workflow’s settings.

Trigger	The workflow starts when
A record is created	someone saves a new record in the module
A record is updated	someone saves a change to an existing record
Created or updated	either of the two above happens
A record is deleted	someone deletes a record
Adhoc	a button or another part of Beezr starts it on purpose
From a webhook	another system calls the workflow’s web address

A workflow can also run on a clock, for example every Monday at 09:00. Choose when a workflow runs explains each trigger and when to use it.

What can a workflow do?

A workflow is a chain of steps. You add them from a picker with five groups.

Group	Steps in it
Logic	Decision, Loop, Wait, Terminate
Records	Record manager, Load data, Approval task
Communicate	Send email, Smart document
Data	JSON parser, CSV parser, Custom function, AI agent
Connect	REST API, Integration, Web agent

Integration and Web agent appear only in workspaces that have those add-ons. Each step has its own page in Workflow steps.

How does a workflow choose a path?

Most steps lead to one next step. Three steps split the road.

• A Decision has two paths, Yes and No. It takes Yes when its conditions hold.
• An Approval task has two paths, Approved and Rejected. It pauses the workflow until someone decides.
• A Loop has two paths, Each item and After loop. It repeats the first for every record in a list.

Two paths can lead to the same step. Beezr calls that a join: one shared step that runs for whichever path arrives.

Tip from a Beezr Consultant

Think of a workflow as the process you would draw on a whiteboard. If you cannot say what the trigger is and where each path ends, draw it first. The designer is quicker once the drawing is clear.

Should it run before the save or after?

A workflow that reacts to a record can run after the record is saved (POST) or before it (PRE). After is the usual choice. The person who saved never waits for it.

A workflow set to run before the save can check the record and stop the save. For example, it can refuse a purchase order with no vendor. Before the save or after compares the two.

What is a run?

Each time a workflow executes, Beezr records a run. A run has a PID (its identifier), a start time, a status and a log of every step it took. You read them in the run debugger, opened with Runs on the Automation page.

Run statuses are Completed, Failed, Running and Never finished. Find out why a workflow failed shows how to read them.

A small example

Sara raises a purchase order for 80,000.

• The record is saved, and the trigger A record is created fires.
• A Decision checks whether the amount is above 50,000. It is, so the Yes path runs.
• An Approval task appears in the inbox of everyone with the Procurement manager role.
• Karim approves. The Approved path runs, and a Record manager step sets the status to Approved.

Your own process will differ, but the shape is the same: a trigger, a few steps, a branch, an end. The tutorial builds this one.

A workflow that runs after the save starts in the background. The save finishes first, and the workflow runs in its own thread, so a slow email never slows the person who saved.