--- title: "What is Workflows?" slug: "what-is-workflows" updated: 2026-05-27T06:40:24Z published: 2026-05-27T06:40:24Z --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.gladly.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # What is Workflows? **Workflows** give you deterministic control over how Gladly behaves during a Conversation. Where Guides use AI to interpret instructions and respond flexibly to what a Customer says, Workflows follow a fixed sequence of steps, the same way, every time, regardless of how the conversation unfolds. Use Workflows when consistency matters more than flexibility: sending a required disclosure, collecting specific information before a handoff, routing customers based on Channel or intent, or filtering out contacts you don't want Gladly to engage with. ## How Workflows fit with Guides Guides and Workflows are complementary. Guides handle the open-ended, conversational work: answering questions, taking action, deciding when to escalate. Workflows handle the parts of a conversation where steps need to happen in a specific order and the outcome needs to be guaranteed. Workflows connect to a Gladly Agent through Workflow Triggers. Two triggers are available: 1. Runs a workflow before the first message is processed. 2. Runs a workflow before a handoff to a team member. In both cases, the workflow completes its steps first, then control passes back to the Agent or the human team member. Use the visual below to understand how Workflows and Guides are separate, but can work together: ![Comparison of workflows and guides illustrating their roles in customer interactions.](https://cdn.us.document360.io/7047b671-c4f2-4df0-bb0a-b9b511fd2452/Images/Documentation/workflows and guides (2).png) ## What you can do with Workflows Workflows are built from five step types that can be combined in any order: - **Say** — Send a message to the customer. Can be a fixed, word-for-word message or an AI-generated response based on instructions you provide. - **Ask** — Collect information from the customer through a back-and-forth conversation. Gladly keeps asking follow-up questions until all required fields are captured. - **If** — Branch the workflow based on a condition. Conditions can be expression-based (checking the value of a variable or conversation attribute) or evaluated by AI (for example, "Is the customer upset?"). - **Use** — Run an external action, such as looking up data, applying a topic, or checking business hours. - **Stop** — End the workflow. When stopping, you choose what happens next: hand off to a team member, route to a specific Gladly Agent or Guide, close the conversation, or close with a scheduled follow-up. ## Common use cases Workflows are well-suited to any situation that needs to run the same way every time. Here are a few examples of how teams use them: - **Greeting and disclosure messages** Send a required first message before your Gladly Agent responds, such as an SMS opt-out notice or a disclosure that the customer is speaking with an AI. - **Spam and email filtering** Identify emails from known senders, newsletters, or automated notifications and close them automatically without routing to your team. - **Collect info before a handoff** Before transferring a customer to a team member, gather their name, issue description, email address, or order number so your team has the context they need. - **Route customers to the right Guide** Use the customer's Channel, Entry Point, or their response to an opening question to send them to the correct Guide automatically. - **Buyer and seller routing** For marketplace businesses, ask customers to identify themselves and route each to a completely different experience based on their response. - **After-hours handling** Check whether your team is available and, if not, notify the customer and close the session or schedule a follow-up for when you reopen. - **Block unwanted handoffs** Prevent a handoff from completing under certain conditions, such as when a Contact comes in outside of business hours or from a channel you don't staff. - **Apply topics automatically** Tag conversations with the right topic based on what a customer says or does before a Gladly Agent or team member takes over. ![Overview of workflows with descriptions, versions, and update timestamps for Gladly platform.](https://cdn.us.document360.io/7047b671-c4f2-4df0-bb0a-b9b511fd2452/Images/Documentation/workflwows examples.png) ## How Workflows are organized Workflows exist independently of any individual Gladly Agent. A single Workflow can be connected to multiple Agents, which means you can build a Workflow once and reuse it wherever it's needed. You manage all Workflows from the Workflows page in the Gladly AI admin. Creating a workflow on its own does nothing. For a workflow to run, it needs to be connected to a trigger within a Gladly Agent. To do that, you configure it from the Workflow Triggers tab within that Agent. See [Workflow Triggers](/product-docs/docs/workflows-and-guides) for instructions. ## Start with a template The fastest way to get started with Workflows is to use one of the built-in templates available in the workflow editor. Templates are pre-built starting points for the most common workflow use cases. When you create a new workflow, the editor opens to the template selector automatically, choose a template to start from a pre-built structure you can customize, or select **Blank** to build from scratch. ![Templates for starting workflows, including options for routing and user verification.](https://cdn.us.document360.io/7047b671-c4f2-4df0-bb0a-b9b511fd2452/Images/Documentation/start with a template (1).png) ### Available templates - **First-message disclosure** — sends a required disclosure message that varies by channel - **Collect info before handoff** — gathers customer details before transferring to a team member - **Spam routing rules** — automatically sorts inbound emails by content and routes them accordingly - **Route to guide** — uses AI to classify the conversation and send it to the right Guide - **Block after-hours handoff** — prevents handoffs when agents are offline - **User address verification** — verifies a customer's email or phone number via a one-time code, remembering successful verifications for the session *Conversation* or *Conversations* (with a capital "C") provides a holistic view of Customer communications and interactions contained in the Conversation Timeline. *Customer* or C*ustomers* refers to the people you support through Gladly who buy or use your products or services.*Channel* or *Channels* refers to the communication method used to communicate with Customers. Gladly supports the following Channels: - Voice/IVR - Email - Chat (via Glad App) - SMS/MMS - Social Messaging: Facebook Messenger, Instagram Messaging, Whatsapp Agents use the availability controls to receive Customers contacting in through these Channels. ![](https://connect.gladly.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Availability-Channel.png)*Entry**Points* or *Entry Points* describe the method and configuration for receiving inbound communications from Customres based on the Channel they used to contact you. *Contact* or *Contacts* (with a capital "C") is a *phone call* , *messaging session*, *email*, or *voicemail*. Contact(s) can be defined as an Inbound (started by the Customer) or Outbound (started by Agents) activity. A *Contact* can contain one or multiple messages (individual chat messages, SMSes, etc.) and is part of a Conversation.