Working on a Run
A run is one pass through a workflow — the place where the work actually happens. This article walks through a run from start to finish. Each section links to a deeper article on that specific feature.
Starting a run
From the Workflows page, press Start Run on the workflow you want to use. Before the run is created you can:
- Name it. Give the run a name that identifies this particular instance — the applicant, the property, the client. Naming your workflow runs
- Fill the roles. If the workflow assigns steps to a role rather than a person, you choose who fills that role for this run. Where several people hold the role, you can pick one or add them all and let them sort out who does what. Role based assignments
- Set a start date in the future, if the run shouldn’t begin yet. Schedule a run in the future
- Set a due date for the run as a whole.
- Add an external ID to tie the run to a record in another system. Associate a run with the ID of a record in a different system
- Add tags for organizing and later filtering. Filtering the runs page with multiple tags
Create a New Run Manually covers the creation screen in detail.
What the run inherits from the workflow
When the run opens, a lot is already filled in:
- Participants — everyone added to the run. You can add more at any time. The difference between participants and assignees
- The run’s due date, calculated from the workflow’s expected duration. Understanding workflow expected duration
- Step assignments, including anyone assigned by role.
- Step due dates and reminders, calculated from the workflow’s settings. Configuring Workflow & Run Reminders
Completing steps
Most steps are a matter of doing the work and checking them off, but some have conditions attached:
- Steps that collect data need the data entered before the step can be completed. How to collect data with your workflows
- Steps with required subtasks stay locked until every required subtask is checked. Step subtasks
- Conditional steps and sections appear only once an earlier answer calls for them, so a run can look shorter than the workflow until something triggers the extra work. Conditional Logic in Workflows
Talking about the work
Every step takes comments, and you can mention specific people in them. Anyone mentioned gets a notification and can reply straight from that notification — their reply lands on the step as a comment. Using comments and mentions to communicate
Finding your way around a long run
The bar at the top of the run filters the step list, which matters once a run has more steps than fits on a screen. You can narrow by assignee, and by status — late, due today, due this week, due next week.
The filter bar sits at the top of every run.
Two checkboxes control what the list shows you:
- Only My Steps hides everything not assigned to you. Off by default.
- Completed Steps, when unchecked, makes each step disappear as you finish it, so what’s left is what’s outstanding. On by default.
Both are your own preferences and follow you from run to run, rather than being settings on the run itself. Step filtering for today, this week, next week
Only My Steps hides everything not assigned to you.
Unchecking Completed Steps leaves only what is still outstanding.
Changing the layout
The columns icon offers three ways to view a run:
- Single Column Display — the default: one list of steps.
- Two Column Display — sections, steps, due dates and assignees on the left; a detail panel on the right showing the selected step’s process documentation, embedded images and video, and its comments.
- Calendar Display — the run laid out by date, which earns its keep when steps have staggered due dates. Calendar views of assignments
Your choice is remembered in the browser you made it in, so it won’t follow you to another computer. Members, Limited users and Guests always see the single column view. What Limited, Member, and Guest users see in a run
Single Column Display.
Two Column Display, with the selected step detailed on the right.
Run settings
Opening the run’s settings lets you change the things that were set when it was created — its name, its due date, its participants and its tags — without touching the workflow it came from.
Admin actions on a run
Admins have a further set of actions: archive the run, customize it (changing the steps of this run only), export it, publish it, and open dedicated pages for its assignments and its reminders.
Workflow settings are relative; run settings are specific
Assignments, due dates and reminders set on the workflow are relative — three days after the run starts, say — and every new run inherits them. The same settings made inside a run are specific dates and times that apply to that run alone. That is why editing a workflow doesn’t disturb runs already in progress.
Seeing every run of a workflow
The Runs page lists your runs and filters them the same ways the step bar does. Using the Runs list page
Summary view turns all the runs of one workflow into a grid — every run down the side, every step across the top, with the status of each. Hovering a cell tells you who it’s assigned to, when it’s due and who completed it, and you can complete steps directly from the grid without opening the run. Summary View of Runs
Summary view: every run of a workflow, side by side.