Automate with workflows

New to this? Start with the idea, not the buttons. A workflow is a set of instructions you write once, and Exabloom follows them for you, automatically, every time, day or night. Think of it as a reliable teammate who never forgets a follow-up and never sleeps.

Every workflow boils down to one simple sentence:

You won’t write code. You build the workflow by drawing a flowchart on a canvas: dropping in boxes (we call them nodes) and connecting them top to bottom in the order they should run. Once it’s switched on, contacts flow through that chart one step at a time, all on their own.

The single biggest beginner mistake is opening the canvas and dragging nodes around hoping a flow appears. It won’t. The people who build good workflows always plan in plain words first, then translate that plan into nodes. Here’s a four-question method you can use every single time.

1. 1What starts it?Name the exact moment this should kick off: “a new lead replies”, “a lead moves to Qualified”, “every Monday morning”. That moment becomes your trigger.
2. 2What’s the outcome?Finish the sentence “by the end, I want…”. For example: “…the lead either booked a call, or a teammate has been told to step in.” Knowing the destination keeps the middle honest.
3. 3What happens in between?Write the steps as a numbered list in everyday language: reply, wait two days, check if they answered, follow up. Don’t think about node names yet, just the story.
4. 4Where does it fork?Find every “if… otherwise…” in your story. Each fork is a branch (an If else). “If they replied, flag it for a teammate. If not, send one more nudge.”

Do that and you’ve already done the hard part. Building is just transcription: each line of your plan becomes a node. Here’s the same plan, written out and then translated to the canvas.

You’ve seen the shape already: one trigger that decides who enters and when, then a chain of nodes that run once they’re in. This section names the actual pieces you get to choose from, so the rest of the guide has a vocabulary to lean on.

A workflow has exactly one trigger. Most triggers are events that fire when something happens; Time driven is the odd one out, because it enrols people on a timetable instead. This is the full list, grouped the way the builder groups it:

Everything after the trigger is an action or a control-flow step. The Actions drawer sorts them into these groups; you’ll meet each family as you go.

Before you build, get the lay of the land. You reach the builder from the Workflows page, and the two screens are laid out differently on purpose. Three short steps get you in and looking around.

Now the canvas itself. Every node is a white card with a coloured tile, and the colour tells you what kind of step it is.

Two badges are worth knowing on sight. A dashed amber border with Needs setup means a required step is incomplete and will block publishing. A purple warning triangle on the corner means Configuration issue detected: hover it, or open the node, to see what is wrong.

Click the ⋯ on an action or control-flow step for its menu. Copy, Move and Delete each ask how much to take with them.

Click a node and a panel opens from the right. Trigger panels are titled Add Trigger or Edit Trigger; action panels Add Action or Edit Action. Each starts with a name field, then that node’s own settings, and ends with Cancel and Save.

Let’s build the simplest useful thing: an instant reply when a brand-new contact messages you. Five steps, and you’ll be back on the builder screen from the tour.

One path is rarely enough. The If else step splits your flow: it checks its branches from top to bottom, sends the contact down the first branch whose conditions are true, and sends everyone who matched none down Else. Order matters, so a narrow branch belongs above a broad one.

Back on the canvas, each branch becomes its own path, headed by a grey label with the name you gave it. Add steps under each with the +.

What you can test depends on the field’s type. The operators you’ll reach for most:

You can branch on almost anything Exabloom knows: a contact or lead field, a tag, the pipeline stage, the text of the message, whether you are open or closed (Availability > Business Status), or the result of an earlier step. Need more than one test in a branch? Use + Add condition and switch between AND and OR; + Add condition group nests one level of grouping.

Great follow-up is about when as much as what. Two amber steps give you control over time.

• Wait for time delay - pause for a fixed time (a number and Seconds, Minutes, Hours or Days) or until a specific date and time, then carry on.
• Wait for reply - hold until the contact messages back, or until the timeout runs out. It records whether they Replied (True or False) so you can branch on it.

Together they make the classic follow-up. Put the Wait for reply straight after the message it is waiting on, with the timeout you want, then branch on Replied.

So far you’ve scripted every message. The AI Agent step (under AI in the Actions drawer) hands the conversation to one of your AI agents to run freely (answering, qualifying, booking) and then tells you how it ended. You choose which agent and channel; the agent itself is built under AI Agents in the Admin Dashboard (see The AI agent & Knowledge Hub).

When the agent finishes, the step records an Exit Reason. Branch on it with an If else to decide what happens next.

• goal_achieved - the conversation goal was met. timeout - the session went quiet. max_turns_exceeded - it ran past the allowed number of turns.
• error, taken_over_by_human and agent_not_published are written by the system; the agent can’t choose them, but your branches can match them. A run that errors or is taken over matches no branch unless you add one.

Workflows don’t just talk; they keep your CRM tidy. The Lead and Contact steps let automation do the admin your team would otherwise forget:

A classic: the moment a lead reaches your Qualified stage, hand it to the right person and flag it. Start it with the Lead updated trigger and a condition on the stage using the Has changed operator.

As you run more workflows, the important questions become who enters and when they leave. Get these wrong and you double-message people. The Settings tab is where you tune both. It has four sections, top to bottom: End Workflow Conditions (the stop switches), Enrolment Criteria (who can enter), Exit Actions (what happens after someone leaves) and Error Handling (what to do when a step fails).

• How people enter - a trigger fires, you bulk-add them from Contacts or Leads (the Add to workflow bulk action), or a schedule enrols them. Re-entry is allowed by default, but even then a contact who is already running (or has been handed to a human) isn’t enrolled a second time at once. Switch Allow contact to enter workflow more than once off and each contact can go through only once, ever.
• How people leave - they reach END, a Remove from workflow step runs, or a stop switch fires: Stop when contact replied (your customer messages) or Stop when a teammate takes over (a teammate manually replies). An error can end them too, if Error Handling is Exit.
• What happens after - an Exit Actions rule drops someone into another workflow based on how they left: any reason, any of, or none of a list (Contact Replied, User Replied, Taken over by teammate, Removed from Workflow Node, User Requested Exit, Error Occurred, Node Removed, Completed). That’s how you chain small workflows instead of building one giant one.
• When a step fails - Continue keeps going with the next step, Pause holds the contact for manual review, and Exit stops them immediately.

Going live is two clicks you already know: the Published switch, then Save. What’s new is what happens when the switch says no, and how you watch it work afterwards.

• Published vs Drafted - a Published workflow enrols and runs people; flipping it back to Drafted stops new enrolments. Treat the switch as your on/off. (In the Workflows list the same states read as a Published or Draft badge.)
• The check is narrow - the publish check covers Find Contact, Flag for attention, Share context, AI Agent and Milestone steps. It won’t notice, say, an empty message on a Send WhatsApp Business step, so open every step once before you publish.
• Edits apply when you save - so change a live, enrolling workflow deliberately, and lean on the roll-out tip below.

You can also flip a workflow’s status without opening it. From the list, hover the row and click the ⋮ beside its name.

The Status column tells you where each contact is: Completed, Waiting (mid-wait), Processing (an AI step working), Sending or Message Scheduled for messages on their way, and Error when a step failed.

Six recipes, roughly easiest to most involved. Each combines pieces you’ve now met, so read them as patterns to adapt, not scripts to copy exactly. Green is the trigger, violet an action, amber a control-flow step.

Every term you’ve met in this guide, in one place. Skim it now, or come back whenever a word doesn’t click.

Trigger

The event that starts the workflow for one contact: a reply, a new lead, a stage change, or a schedule. Every workflow has exactly one, and it is green on the canvas.

Node

A single step on the canvas: send a message, wait, check a condition, update a lead. You connect nodes top to bottom to make a flow.

Branch (If else)

A fork in the flow. The branches are checked top to bottom and the contact goes down the first one whose conditions are true, or down Else if none is.

Enrol / enrolment

When a contact enters a workflow and starts moving through it. Each contact has its own enrolment, running independently of everyone else’s.

Stop condition

A switch under End Workflow Conditions on the Settings tab that ends someone’s enrolment early: Stop when contact replied, or Stop when a teammate takes over.

Re-entry

Whether a contact who already went through can enter again. It’s on by default; switch it off for one-time sequences.

Exit reason

How something ended. An AI Agent step records goal_achieved, timeout, max_turns_exceeded and so on, which you branch on. A whole enrolment has exit reasons too (Contact Replied, Completed…), which Exit Actions match on.

Exit Action

A rule that drops a contact into another workflow based on how they left, so you chain small workflows instead of building one giant one.

Published / Drafted

A workflow’s on/off state. Published means it is live and enrolling people; Drafted means it is switched off while you edit. (The Workflows list shows the same as a Published or Draft badge.)

Wait

A step that pauses one contact’s journey: Wait for time delay for a set time, Wait for reply until they answer or a timeout passes. It doesn’t hold up anyone else.

• Save twice. A panel’s Save updates the canvas; the top-bar Save stores it. Flipping the Published switch also needs a Save. There’s no warning if you leave with unsaved changes.
• Narrow Contact replied. Left on All contacts, it greets everyone who ever messages you, returning customers included. Choose New contacts only for a first-touch reply.
• Always set a stop condition on sequences, so the automation goes quiet the moment a real conversation starts.
• Mind double enrolment. Re-entry is on by default; switch it off for one-time sequences so no one gets the same journey twice.
• Mind the clock. A wait fires whenever it elapses, so branch on Business Status if a message shouldn’t land in the middle of the night, and use a Template Message for anything sent after WhatsApp’s 24-hour window.
• Put Wait for reply right after the send, or name the send step in “Wait for reply to”, so a reply that arrives early isn’t missed.
• Assign Owner needs a lead and a named teammate. Under a contact trigger it is skipped unless you Find Lead first. To raise a hand, use Flag for attention.
• Add Note is not an alert. It writes a contact note and tells nobody.
• Name your nodes clearly. Those names show up in the Logs and when you reference a step’s output later: “Ask budget” beats “AI Model”.
• Keep workflows small and chained. Several focused workflows joined by Exit Actions are far easier to debug than one sprawling one.
• Test before you scale. Use the Test tab, publish from inside the builder, enrol a few contacts, read the Logs, then widen.