Workflow Lifecycle and Statuses

Workflow Lifecycle Overview

A workflow begins in Draft status while you configure its steps. When you're ready to use the workflow, you activate and publish it. Publishing creates a precise, versioned snapshot of your workflow. At any time, there is one published version that represents the most up-to-date workflow logic.

As automation triggers occur, contacts are enrolled into the current published version. This approach allows you to make updates to workflows without disrupting any processes already underway for existing enrollments.

Workflow Statuses

Draft: The workflow is in authoring mode and not yet considered live. Steps, configuration, and structure may be freely added, removed, or reordered; publishing has either never occurred or the current edits differ from the last published version. No automatic enrollments should trigger on a Draft workflow and manual enrollments should typically be blocked. Use this state for iterative building and safe experimentation before exposing logic to production data flows.

Active: The workflow is live and eligible to receive new enrollments (based on its trigger type) and to advance existing executions through their steps. This status usually indicates there is at least one published version; changes made while Active (in the authoring surface) are not applied to executions until republished, so authoring edits create a divergence (unpublished changes).

Paused: The workflow has been temporarily halted: no further step progression should occur for in-flight executions and no new automatic enrollments should begin while paused. Existing executions remain persisted in a non-terminal state (often still referencing their current version and step indices) and may be resumed later without loss of context. Paused is intended for short-term maintenance, emergency intervention, or batch data corrections—distinct from Cancelled (permanent stop) and Archived (retired record).

Cancelled: The workflow has been permanently stopped prior to archival. All active/pending/paused executions are force-cancelled and will not resume; no new enrollments are allowed. Cancellation is a terminal administrative action signaling that the workflow’s logic should no longer run, often due to deprecation, replacement, or a critical flaw discovered in its design. Unlike Archived, Cancelled emphasizes an abrupt termination event rather than an orderly retirement after completion of its lifecycle.

Archived: The workflow is retired from active use and retained for historical reference, audits, or reporting. No new enrollments occur, and typically there should be no remaining active executions (all should be completed or previously cancelled). Archival is the final lifecycle stage after a workflow is no longer needed operationally but must remain accessible for review, metrics, or cloning as a template for future workflows. It is generally more intentional and orderly than Cancelled, implying successful end-of-life rather than emergency termination.

Workflow Revisions

Workflows aren’t static - they change as you refine them. To keep things stable and reliable, every time you publish a workflow, the system creates a snapshot (a frozen copy) of exactly how it looked at that moment. That way, the workflow you’re editing and the workflow that’s running stay separate.

Here’s why this matters:

1. Stability for Running Workflows

Once published, a workflow version never changes. Any automations already in progress continue to run against that frozen version, even if you make edits later.

2. Safe Editing & Previews

You can experiment freely—adding, removing, or reordering steps—without breaking what’s already running. Nothing changes for live workflows until you choose to publish.

3. Clear Change Tracking

If you’ve made updates since the last publish, the system will flag that there are unpublished changes, so you always know whether your edits are live or still in draft.

4. Built-In Audit Trail

Every published version is stored permanently. This is essential for debugging, compliance reviews, or simply understanding what exactly ran for a past automation.

5. Consistent Results

Re-running or reviewing an old workflow means you’ll see the exact same steps and settings as before. There’s no risk of hidden edits changing past results.

6. No Risky “Live Edits”

Instead of changing logic while it’s running, you always create a new version. That avoids messy halfway-changes and ensures smooth rollouts.

7. Multiple People Can Edit

Even if several team members are editing, only the published version goes live. Drafts can be messy, incomplete, or experimental - production workflows remain safe.

8. Room for Future Features

Because each version is its own snapshot, it’s easy to imagine future features like rolling back to an older version, comparing performance between versions, or running A/B tests.

9. Reliable Cancellations & Updates

Bulk cancellations or status changes always respect the version that was running at the time. Edits you’re working on now won’t affect past runs.

In short: workflow versioning separates design-time (where you experiment) from run-time (where stability matters). This gives you reliability, traceability, and confidence when publishing changes.