What is a workflow, and how is it different from an automation rule?

The two step types a workflow adds

After a workflow's trigger, each step you add is one of three kinds. An Action, which a rule also has. Then two more:

• Decision. Branches the workflow on the contact's characteristics using filters, and gives you a yes path and a no path.
• Delay. A waiting period before the next step. Pick the Exact date type and a timezone selector appears beside the field, defaulting to the account's timezone.

Side by side

A workflow will sit there doing nothing until you switch it on

Activation is separate from saving. It is done from the workflow list, on the three dots beside the workflow, then Activate and Confirm.

Actions only run if the trigger happens after activation. Tags added or removed before the workflow was switched on are not counted.

A workflow can also be built with steps and no trigger at all. It saves, it looks finished, and it never runs.

Switching one off has two answers

Deactivate offers a choice. Deactivate workflow stops new contacts entering but lets scheduled tasks already queued run to the end. Deactivate workflow and cancel related scheduled tasks stops those too.

Editing a delay does not affect people already waiting

Change a delay from 7 days to 14 and the contacts already sitting in that step finish their original 7 days. The new length applies to contacts entering afterwards.

One thing a rule does that a workflow cannot

Picking a specific link inside an email. A rule lets you choose the email and then the individual link. systeme.io says that selecting a specific link is currently not possible in a workflow, so the pattern there is the Email link clicked trigger followed by a Decision using Email clicked.

What both share

• The same 20 activations per contact ceiling. Passing it disables rules and workflows alike for that person.
• The same one minute cooldown on Email link clicked.
• The same one month of history, after which past tasks are cleaned away.

A workflow can be handed to another account

The three dots offer Share, which produces a link. The assets it depends on travel with it: tags, courses, funnels, webinar funnels and their notification emails.

Four things do not travel. The Blog page form subscribed and Creator store form subscribed triggers, and the Add a new row to a Google Sheet and Send webhook actions.

Which one do I want?

• Something has to happen immediately after an event: a rule.
• Something has to wait, or take a different path depending on what the contact did: a workflow.