Workflows
Learn about workflows
What is a workflow?
Workflow is the process of executing and automating routine processes. An event happening in your tool triggers actions according to a set of rules. Workflows in Actioner can be as simple or as complex as you'd like, and can even work across multiple tools and services you use to get work done.
A workflow is distinguished by its flexibility and repeatability. Actioner gives you the right tools to automate any process without the hassle. You can use workflows to build your own Slack apps — no coding required! — and connect all your tools through actions.
How does a workflow work?
Every workflow has a trigger, a condition, and steps that call actions.
Trigger is the event that sets the workflow into motion. It can be a new object creation or an update of a record in your system.
Condition is the requirement that the trigger must satisfy for the workflow to execute an action. You can setup conditions based on the data Actioner receives from your system.
Steps are the actions that run as a result of the trigger if conditions are satisfied. You can create a new Slack post or update an entity in your app.
A workflow is set into motion WHEN your system sends an event to Actioner, IF conditions are met and THEN executes the action(s) in workflow steps. When you create a workflow, it will run its steps every time the trigger event occurs as long as the conditions are satisfied.
Let's take a closer look at some example workflows that you can setup in Actioner.
Use cases
Conversational ticketing for internal support cases
To manage internal requests, you can add actions and workflows that run in Zendesk and Slack.
Creating help requests from Slack messages
When a user is having a problem and requesting help from IT team, he can open a new request by posting a Slack message to a dedicated channel. This triggers the workflow that listens events in this channel. Workflow creates a new ticket and notifies IT helpdesk team with ticket details and attaches smart actions that agents can take.
Assigning ticket and replying to requester
Through actions attached to the notification on IT helpdesk team's channel, an agent can assign the ticket to herself and send a reply to message. This triggers another workflow and updates the ticket created by the user looking for help and notifies him in Slack.
Requester and support agent communicating through threads
The requester can reply to the message originally posted to request help while the agent replies to the message on IT helpdesk team's channel. Every reply triggers a workflow that adds a comment to ticket and sends the reply to other thread.
Resolving issue
When issue is resolved, agent adds a checkmark emoji to Slack message. This triggers the workflow that listens emoji reactions in this channel and sets the ticket's status to closed.
Incident management cases
To manage your incidents, you can add actions and workflows that run in tools such as PagerDuty, Statuspage, Jira and Slack, bundling all incident-related actions together so that your teams can run actions with continuity and focus on resolution.
Incident war rooms when there is a major incident
When there is a major incident in Pagerduty, such as you get a critical alarm from one of your API services, it triggers a workflow that updates your Statuspage and creates a new Slack channel and invites incident responders to track the incident, communicate and collaborate through incident lifecycle.
Sync between updates in war room and incident in PagerDuty
When the incident is updated in PagerDuty, it triggers a workflow that sends a message to room. Through actions added to messages in war rooms, it is also possible to update the incident in Slack. For example, if add responder action is run in a war room, this updates the incident and triggers a workflow that invites the new responder to incident channel.
Incident resolution
When the incident is resolved, it triggers a workflow that sends reminder notifications for publishing a postmortem or to create follow-up tasks in Jira.
Automation cases for sales teams
To close deals faster, you can add actions and workflows that run in HubSpot and Slack.
Deal rooms for key deals
Deal rooms are super-powered Slack channels that give your team access to everything thay need to close a deal and grow an account. When a key deal -a deal over 10,000 USD per say- enters pipeline, a workflow listening events in HubSpot creates a deal room automatically and invites all stakeholders and posts message with a contextual summary and smart action button. In the deal room, everyone can quickly catch up and run actions on notifications. Deal rooms keep all deal information aligned and everyone aligned right in Slack.
Updating deal rooms with deal updates
When deal is updated in HubSpot, it triggers the workflow that listens deal property changed event and sends the update back to deal room, keeping all stakeholders updated.
Celebrate wins and start handoff
When deal is won, it triggers the workflow that listens deal stage changed events in HubSpot and posts a message to #sales-ops channel, including a celebration gif. It also sends another message to #handoff channel and pings the account executive and customer success manager to handoff notes and start the next step on the playbook.
Workflow trigger types
A workflow is triggered when Actioner receives data
- through a webhook or
- from your connected Slack workspace or
- from your connected HubSpot account.
Depending on the event source, there are three types of webhooks that you can configure with Actioner: Webhook workflows, Slack workflows and HubSpot workflows.
Slack workflows capture events happening in your Slack workspace. HubSpot workflows capture events happening in your HubSpot account. You can use webhook workflows to capture events happening in your other tools or services.