Workflow in Freshsales allows you to automate certain actions as soon as an event trigger occurs or at a specific date/time. You can automatically update field properties, send email alerts, create follow-up tasks and also send notifications to third-party apps via webhook based on certain criteria.

For instance, you can automatically send a welcome email to new leads created in the last 24 hours.

A. Workflow Configuration

A workflow configuration will require the following elements:

1. Name your workflow: Specifies the name of the workflow

2. Add Description: Add a description to your workflow to explain the purpose.

3. Run this workflow for: Specifies the record type on which the workflow is executed. You can update the following records:

   1. Contacts

   2. Accounts

   3. Deals

   4. Tasks

   5. Appointments

   6. Call Logs
      

4. When to trigger this workflow?: 
   Specifies the entry point for the workflow. There are two types of entry points a user can choose from.

• Based on record action (Available Garden plan onwards)
  1. When the record is created: workflow is executed only when the record is created.
  2. When the record is created or updated: workflow is executed every single time the record is created or updated to modify the fields in the condition section.
• Based on date & time (Available Estate plan onwards)
  1. Every Day: Workflow is executed daily at a specified time for all records.
  2. Every Week: Workflow is executed weekly on a specified day of the week and at a specific time for all records.
  3. Every Month: Workflow is executed weekly at a specified day of the week and at a specific time for all records.

Note: 
- Workflows based on record action are available Garden plan onwards.
- Workflows based on date time are available from the Estate plan.
- Nested group logic is currently supported only for Event-based workflows

Users can choose the recurrence of the workflow on a specific record as Once, for each record, or Recurrently, for the same record. For eg- When the customer is contacted via email or phone, change the Lead stage to Contacted. This workflow should be performed once for a record. Similarly, whenever an email is received from the customer, you'll want to create a follow-up task for the sales rep. This can be performed multiple times i.e. every single time an email is received from the customer.

Users can choose the recurrence of the workflow on a specific record between one of two options:

• Once, for each record: This is best used when the update needs to be made only once to a field for the contact. After the first update, this workflow will not be triggered for the contact even if the trigger conditions are met again. 
  
  Relevant example: If the first touch point of contact is established, say through email or phone, then you can choose to change the Contact Lifecycle Stage to Contacted. Here, the contact lifecycle stage needs to be changed only once during the entire lifecycle of the contact. Hence, ‘Once, for each record’ is used. 
• Recurrently, for the same record: This option is better suited when a field update will need to be multiple times as and when trigger conditions are met. 
  
  Relevant example: Whenever an email is received from the contact, it is best to create a follow-up task for the sales rep. With recurring triggers, the workflow will be triggered every time an email is received from the contact. Hence, ‘Recurrently, for the same record’ is used.

4. What conditions should be met?
   
   Lists the conditions to filter the records on which the actions are performed. Freshsales supports 10 conditions that can be added to a single group or across groups.
   
   

   Operators supported	Values
   Text	is in
   	is not in
   	is empty
   	is not empty
   	is changed
   	contains
   Date	RELATIVE
   	is greater than n days ago
   	is less than n days ago
   	is exactly n days ago
   	is in n days (future)
   	ABSOLUTE
   	is dd/mm/yyyy
   	is after dd/mm/yyyy
   	is before dd/mm/yyyy
   	is between dd/mm/yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy
   	is empty
   	is not empty
   	is changed
   	is in the last n days
   	is in the next n days

   
   
   

   Created nested group conditions
   Freshsales allows you to create multiple blocks of conditions that can be a combination of AND/OR between blocks and within a single block.

   
   To understand this better, consider 4 conditions— A, B, C, and D. With group conditions, you can create a variety of workflow combinations:
   

   All ORs (all of the below represent the same condition)	(A) OR (B) OR (C) OR (D)
   	(A) OR (B OR C OR D)
   	(A OR B) OR (C OR D)
   	(A OR B OR C) OR (D)
   	(A OR B OR C OR D)
   All ANDs (all of the below represent the same condition)	(A) AND (B) AND (C) AND (D)
   	(A) AND (B AND C AND D)
   	(A AND B) AND (C AND D)
   	(A AND B AND C) AND (D)
   	(A AND B AND C AND D)
   Combination of AND and OR	(A OR B) AND (C OR D)
   	(A AND B) OR (C AND D)
   	(A) OR (B AND C AND D)
   	(A) AND (B OR C OR D)
   	(A OR B OR C) AND (D)
   	(A AND B AND C) OR (D)

   
   And all other combinations in between.

5. What actions should be executed? 

   Lists the automated actions to be performed on the record. A maximum of 5 actions can be added to a workflow. The actions we provide are:

   • Update Records 

   • Trigger webhooks

   • Send email to Owner

   • Create tas

   • Create Deal

   • Send SMS to Owner

   • Send SMS to All related contacts

   • Send email to All related contacts

   • Add Tag

   • Remove Tag

   • Add Contact/Account/ Deal team

   • Send email to all attendees (applicable when 'appointments' are chosen)

For eg, If you are executing a workflow on Deals, you can update Deal properties. 
You can also update related Account’s property and all related contacts' property. 

Limits: The maximum number of workflows differs based on the plan you are in.

B. Create a new workflow

To create a new workflow, follow the steps below:

1. Go to Admin Settings > Workflows.

2. Click Create workflow. 

3. Provide the name and description of the workflow. 

4. Choose when you want to execute the workflow.
   

5. Provide the set of conditions to filter the records on which action should be performed.

6. Provide a set of actions to be performed. You can update the record and its associated records’ property. 
   

7. Click Enable.

Workflow Execution

The actions are performed immediately when the workflow is executed. 

If multiple workflows are triggered at the same point, these are executed in the order of the list they are present. The top workflow will be executed first and the bottom-most workflow will be executed at the end. 

You can reorder the workflows in the list view to change the sequence. To prevent the workflows to go in an infinite loop, the sequence of workflows triggered will stop with the list from top to bottom. That is, the last workflow will not trigger the first workflow again.