A Workflow is a way of automating actions; it's a defined series of steps (tasks and/or emails). You may be familiar with the older term "Playbook".

There are two types of Workflows: Projects and Sequences. Here's quick overview:

*Email steps are emails that are automatically scheduled/sent. You can have a task step where the task instructions are to send a specific email, but that email would not be sent automatically.

Workflows can adjust in response to data while they are running - for example, you can have groups of steps representing goals or milestones, which activate or deactivate as an End User carries out different actions within your product. Various types of data can be used to automatically activate/deactivate a Workflow or its steps.

Workflows combine the efficiency and consistency possible with automation, together with the ability to provide a customized, bespoke service, rather than simply "one size fits all".

A Workflow Template is where you define which steps will happen and when, and who is responsible, etc. For example, you could create a Workflow Template for your Onboarding process, which is then applied to specific Companies at the appropriate time.

The Workflow Template will include rules on when steps occur in relation to each other and other data; the actual start/due/send dates will be applied in an individual Workflow once it's been applied to a record (e.g. an End User). For example, you could have a Workflow Template that states that on day 1, a welcome email is sent; you apply this to your End User "Alan Jones", and that specific Workflow schedules the email for May 20th, 2026 (the date depending on when the Workflow Template is applied).

Workflow Templates can be automatically applied in response to data (via entry criteria), or you can also manually apply them if you choose.

In this article, we will give an overview of "Workflows", one of the Global Tools for admins. This is where you - as a Planhat builder/admin, such as CS Ops - can create and manage Workflow Templates in Planhat.

"Workflows" is one of the Global Tools for admins that you will find on the left-hand side of the top gray bar of your Planhat tenant.

To get to it, click on your tenant name or initial/picture in the top left of Planhat to open up the "System Admin" menu, and select "Workflows".

When you open up the "Workflows" Global Tool, you'll see something like this:

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Let's take a look at the different components here in further detail.

In the top left, you'll see some categories:

These are easy ways for you to quickly jump to particular groups of Workflow Templates. For example:

Below these built-in categories, you'll see labels, which we describe next.

Labels work like filters, except you can apply multiple labels to a single Workflow Template. Think about which categories would be useful for you, such as "Onboarding" or "Advocacy" - you can create these as your labels.

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To set up a new label, simply click "+ Add label" at the bottom of the list (shown in the screenshot above) and choose its name and color.

Then, in the main table view (the right-hand panel), you'll see the "Label" column on the right.

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To apply a label to a Workflow Template, simply click in the label column for that row, and then use the checkboxes to select one or more labels. (You can see at the bottom that you can also create a new label here.)

As with many other parts of Planhat, there is a "Find in view..." search box within the "Workflows" Global Tool.

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This is another quick and easy way to find a specific Workflow Template within your list, and it's visible regardless of any filter/label you have selected on the left-hand side, so you can use these tools in combination.

Now let's take a look at the main table in the middle/right of the "Workflows" Global Tool.

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This table is a great overview of your Workflow Templates. As well as the pre-built filters and custom labels we discussed previously, you can click on a suitable column header to sort by that property. Click the same column header again to switch between ascending and descending order.

You can also view and edit the labels in the far right-hand column, as we previously discussed.

Finally, you can disable/activate your Workflow Templates using the toggle switch shown.

If you would like to add a new Workflow Template, you begin by clicking the orange "+ New workflow template" in the top-right corner of the "Workflows" Global Tool (shown below).

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For the rest of the steps, check out our separate article on creating Workflow Templates.