Designing a simple manual workflow

Learn how to design workflows with manual triggers.

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In this tutorial, we'll go over the steps to create a simple form in Slack.

Prerequisites

Workflows are part of apps in Actioner. If you have not installed or created any app so far, first create an app from scratch.

To create a new workflow and open your workflow in canvas mode:

1. Navigate to your app's Wokflows tab and create a new workflow.
2. Give your workflow a name, provide a description and add tags optionally.

Example workflow: Equipment request form in Slack

We'll design an example workflow that will be manually triggered in Slack by filling out a form.

The workflow will start with a form submission for new employee equipments and will notify IT-help desk team about the request in their Slack channel. Form will consist of below fields:

• New employee name: A free-form text field
• Equipment type: A multiselect dropdown field with these options: Laptop, Monitor, Keyboard and mouse and Mobile phone
• Manager: A dropdown field listing the users in Slack
• Due date: A date field
• Description: A multiline free-form text field

Step 1. Create your trigger

1. Select Manual from trigger options.
2. On the opening left panel, you can give a new name to your trigger.

Step 2. Create your inputs and build your form

1. Add a new input. employeeName. Select text input type and update its label and ID.

2. Add another input. equipmentType. Select multi select input type and update its label and ID. Enter static options as: Laptop, Monitor, Keyboard and mouse and Mobile phone

3. Add another input. manager. Select single select input type and update its label and ID. Enter dynamic options as below:

   • Display: {{response.body.users.map(u=>u.name)}}
   • Identifier: {{response.body.users.map(u=>u.id)}}

   

4. Add another input. dueDate. Select date input type and update its label and ID.

5. Add another input. description. Select text area input type and update its label and ID.

Step 3. Select your action (Send message to channel Slack action)

1. Add a new node. Select Actions option and then select Slack from the opening list.

2. On the opening left panel, you can give a new name to your action.

3. Select Send message to channel in action selection field.

4. Select your Slack connection.

5. In channel field, select the channel you want to send notifications to.

6. Click on Message blocks and add a new markdown block. The opening Markdown block field is the area that you can design how your Slack message looks like. Here you can

   • add markdown elements to style your notification.
   • reference to the values in trigger event inside curlies.

7. Add below to Markdown block:

**New equipment request:**
> **Employee name**: {{input.employeeName}}
> **Manager**: <@{{input.manager}}>
> **Equipment type**: {{input.equipmentType}}
> **Due date**: {{input.dueDate}}
> **Description**: {{input.description}}

Step 4. Save your form and test it.

1. Apply changes to your workflow on top right corner.
2. You can run your workflow in Actioner or run it in Slack.

To run your workflow in Slack, call Actioner from shortcuts and then type the name of your workflow.