Automated Workflows
Workflows (Flows) let your agent complete multi-step tasks reliably. Instead of a single answer, a Flow can collect information, call systems, and respond with a clear outcome.
What is a Flow?
A Flow is a structured set of steps (nodes) connected by logic. It can:
- Ask follow-up questions.
- Call a Connector to fetch or update data.
- Branch based on conditions.
- Escalate to a human when needed.
Flows are ideal when you need consistent, repeatable actions rather than a single free-form reply.
Flow types
Applied supports two types:
- Conversational: interactive steps that talk with the customer.
- Operational: background steps that run without sending messages.
Operational Flows are useful for silent updates like writing a ticket note or syncing data after a conversation ends.
Flow lifecycle
Flows can be Draft, Active, or Archived. Only Active flows run in live conversations.
Start a Flow from an Activity Event
Use the Activity Event trigger when an external customer or business event should start an Operational Flow. Send the event with the Create event API, then configure the Flow’s trigger conditions.
Most external events only need metric.metric_name, metric.deduping_key, and
metric.additional_properties. Activity Event conditions can match the metric
name and custom properties, where metric.additional_properties.cart_id becomes
properties.cart_id in the Flow condition builder. If you send a contact,
Applied resolves or creates that contact and makes the contact available to the
Flow trigger.
The object reference fields are optional:
| Field | When to send it |
|---|---|
metric.metric_object_type + metric.metric_object_id | Use these only when the event should derive metric properties or values from an existing Applied object. The ID must be an Applied UUID for a Conversation, Message, Ticket, FlowRun, or Agent. |
metric.context_object_type + metric.context_object_id | Use these when the metric should be stored against an existing Applied object for analytics. The ID must be an Applied UUID for the matching object type. |
For a cart abandonment event from an ecommerce platform, you can usually omit
both object-reference pairs and put external IDs like checkout IDs, cart IDs, or
order IDs in deduping_key and additional_properties.
Build your first Flow
- Open Agents -> Flows.
- Click New Flow.
- Add nodes like Agent Response, Connector, or Escalate.
- Connect nodes with paths to define the logic.
Use branches to handle different outcomes (for example, “order found” vs “order not found”).
Test and monitor
Use the Flow builder to run sample inputs and confirm outputs. In Monitor, review flow runs and failures to see which paths were taken and where handoffs occurred.