Workflow

A workflow runs a flowchart against a record. It decides what happens next, does the automated work itself, hands human work to the right people, and keeps a dated record of every step. Workflows can attach to any kind of record: a case, a contact, an organization, a document, and so on.

If you can draw your process as a flowchart, you can build it as a workflow:

• Each flowchart is a workflow template.
• Each shape is a step: create a task, generate a document, send a message, calculate a score, create a ledger, open a process, launch a child workflow, evaluate an if/then condition, wait for data with a polling step, or call any QBO operation.
• Each line is a dependency. A step starts once the steps it depends on are complete (and, after an if/then step, only on the branch that matches the result).

Because every step has an expected duration, QBO projects when each step and the whole workflow should finish, and reports where work runs late. Steps can run immediately or be queued to app servers, so heavy automation doesn’t slow down users. Holds pause a workflow for outside events and track the time spent waiting, so you can report true processing time.

Workflows don’t just track work; they do it. A step can classify a document with AI, call an outside service, or run a batch across hundreds of related records, and the workflow moves on when the work is done.

Key concepts

Concept	In QBO	What it does
Workflow	Decision	One running instance of a flowchart, bound to its parent through Object and ObjectID.
Workflow template	DecisionTemplate	The flowchart: its steps, what it applies to, and how many may run per record.
Step	DecisionStep / DecisionStepTemplate	One shape on the flowchart, and its definition: what it does, how long it should take, and which queue runs it.
Dependency	DecisionDependency	One line on the flowchart: “this step waits for that step”, optionally only when an if/then result is true or false.
Hold	DecisionDelay / DecisionDelayTemplate	A pause on a workflow, with a reason, a duration, and optionally a task to justify it.

Workflows create work that other building blocks manage: tasks are Forms, tasks reach people through Worklists, and template choices can be driven by Rules. Cases launch workflows automatically; see Cases.

Choose your view

Use the buttons under the page title. End user covers following and managing workflows on a record; Power user covers templates, steps, dependencies, and holds; Developer covers the processing model and the API.

Walkthroughs that use this

• Build a customer outreach workflow with follow-up calls
• Launch workflows from a data warehouse query