Write your first flow
A flow is one of your business processes written down in plain English and compiled into software, so it runs the same way every time and stops to ask you wherever the process says a person decides. This guide builds one, from your first sentence to a run you can watch.
By the end you will have a small working flow. Every Friday afternoon it goes through the week's enquiries, sends you a line about each, and asks whether to draft any replies. It waits for your answer, drafts only the ones you name, and sends nothing without asking you first.
Flows are early access. They work, and they are still being finished, so a first flow deserves a few supervised runs before you rely on it. There is no button that makes one: you get a flow by asking in the chat you already use.
Before you start
You need one channel connected, so the flow has somewhere to look for enquiries and somewhere to send the list. Email or Telegram will do: see Connect Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack or email. Allow an hour, most of it waiting while the flow is built.
1. Describe the process
Open a new chat and say what you want, the way you would explain it to somebody starting on Monday.
Every Friday at four, go through the enquiries that came in this week. Write me one line about each: who it is from, what they want, and how long it has been waiting. Send me the list on Telegram, then ask whether to draft replies to any of them. Draft only the ones I name, and send nothing to anybody without asking me first.
Your assistant tells you first that flows are still new and that simple ones work best, then asks its questions one at a time.
You should now see a conversation rather than a form: which mailbox counts as enquiries, what to do with a duplicate, whether four o'clock means your time zone.
2. Read the description back
Answer the questions, then ask to see what it has written.
Your assistant writes the process down in ordinary business words, and can draw it beside the chat as a map.
You should now see a description you recognise as your own process. If a line does not sound like your business, say so now, because this description is the flow and everything later is built from it.
3. Settle the rules and the pause
Correct anything that is wrong, and be specific about where you want to be asked.
Your assistant suggests, but it never decides a business rule for you: expect "I suggest three days as the line for chasing. Do you agree?" Every answer is written down beside the process, so a rebuild honours it instead of asking again.
You should now see your answers repeated back, and the pause stated plainly: the run stops before any reply is drafted.
4. Let it check the flow
Ask it to check the flow before anything is built.
It looks for the gaps that trip a process up: a step with nothing to do when something fails, a decision with no path for a case you did not mention. Structural problems it fixes itself; a question about your business comes back to you.
You should now see a clean check and a short recap: what the flow will do, when it fires, who it talks to, what it changes. Read it, because this is the last cheap moment to change your mind.
5. Build it
Say yes when it asks whether to go ahead.
Building turns your description into software and takes a while, so it happens in the background while you get on with something else. It appears under Automations > Jobs (/jobs) if you want to watch.
You should now see a message telling you the build is accepted: it passed its own checks and can be started, which is not the same as being right for your business.
6. Run it once and watch
Ask for a run: "run the Friday enquiries flow now". Your assistant starts the latest accepted build and gives you the link to the run. The same run starts from Automations > Flows (/manage/flows): find the flow on the Library tab and press Run latest accepted build.
You should now see the run open on its own page: the process drawn as a map with the current step lit, and beside it what went in, how far along it is, and a log of every step and decision. Click an event and the map moves to that step, and it all updates live.
When the run reaches the point where the process asks you, the question arrives on your channel in ordinary words and the status changes to suspended: waiting, not finished. Answer, and the run picks up from the step it stopped at and goes through to the end.
7. Put it on the schedule
Say "switch the Friday trigger on" and the flow runs itself every Friday at four. Leave it off and it runs only when you ask, which is the safer place for a new flow.
On the Library tab each flow's row shows its trigger with a switch, so you can see it is on and turn it off again there. Test fire, beside the switch, fires it now instead of waiting for Friday; Disable all stops every trigger at once.
You should now see the trigger active on the flow's row, and mirrored, read only, on Automations > Scheduled (/cron).
What you learned
A flow goes through five stages: you describe it, it is checked, it is built, you run it, and you decide what sets it going. You did all five in one conversation, in ordinary English.
Runs are kept: Automations > Flows (/manage/flows) holds the library and the history, and any run can be read back weeks later. A flow pauses exactly where you said a person decides, and waits as long as it takes.
Before you rely on this one, try it on two or three real cases and check what it decided and what it would have sent. Corrections you give then survive a rebuild.
If something goes wrong
The check finds a problem. Most findings are questions about your business rather than faults: answer them and it checks again. One that keeps failing usually means two of your rules contradict each other, so say which wins.
The build fails. Ask what happened. Most first builds fail on something the process needs that is not there yet: a mailbox nobody named, or a list with nobody on it. Put that right and build again; if it fails twice on the same point, make the flow smaller.
The run stalls. A run waiting for you sits as suspended indefinitely, so check your channel for an unanswered question first. A genuinely stuck run can be cancelled from its own page or the Runs tab. A run waiting for you survives a restart. One that was in the middle of a step when your installation restarted is not picked up again, so start that one afresh.
Where next
- Set up a trigger, when something outside Player One should start the work.
- Schedule something, for a routine that needs one instruction on a clock.
- Inbox triage with your approval, the same shape worked through.
- Flows and Make it repeat, for the simpler ways to take a routine off your hands.