Introducing Workflows: Automate your Glide apps

You can now create powerful automations directly within Glide using Workflows.

In the past, Glide users have relied on external tools integrations to create automations. Workflows introduces a new way to build automations that is deeply integrated with your data and interface–offering powerful new capabilities like loops, conditional logic, and computations, as well as a more intuitive development experience.

With the launch of Workflows, builders now have everything they need to build sophisticated solutions in a single, unified platform.

How to use Workflows

In the Workflow Editor, you can now create automations that allow your Glide apps to complete tasks without user interaction. The Action Editor has been renamed the Workflow Editor with Workflows replacing Custom Actions (not Actions). 

Workflows can be automatically triggered from multiple sources, including app events, email receipts, and user interactions. More triggers will be coming in the future. 

Workflows work natively with Glide data sources, making your automations quicker to configure, more reliable, and easier to troubleshoot. You also gain more granular visibility into where your workflows are running, how many times they have run, and other types of activity. 

You can still use external workflow builders like Zapier and Make with Glide, especially when you need to connect your Glide apps to other parts of your tech stack.

Parts of a Workflow

Each workflow begins with a Trigger—the action that prompts the Workflow to begin. From there, the Workflow consists of one or more steps. A single workflow can contain up to 2,000 steps. For example, both of these are workflows:

• Trigger → Step 1

• Trigger → Step 1 → Step 2 → Step 3…

There are three different types of steps that you can use alone or in combination with one another:

• Actions: Actions create change or perform a function in your app. These are the familiar Action steps we all know and love. They include native actions plus integrations and AI.

• Loops: Loops allow workflows to sequentially process each cell in your data, one at a time. Every scheduled workflow begins with a loop. You connect a loop to a data source. The loop applies to every row. It’s a good idea to lead with Loops since it's a requirement–you can add more, but you need at least one.

• Conditions: Conditions allow you to create branches within workflows that will only run if the conditions are met. You can also nest loops within conditions to create more advanced logic.

By chaining together a trigger and these different steps, you can create workflows that automate complex tasks within your Glide app without requiring human interaction. 

Workflows currently have four different types of Triggers: User Interaction Trigger, Scheduled Trigger, Webhook Trigger, and Email Trigger. Let’s look at how each works.

Scheduled Trigger

The Scheduled Trigger allows you to run actions at designated times. This is useful for automating routine hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly tasks or for setting up regular checks on existing work. Your app will run actions autonomously on a recurring schedule, keeping your work flowing even when no one is clocked in.

How to use the Scheduled Trigger:

• Every hour, check if employees have overdue tasks and notify them.

• Every day, add rows to the Inventory table for employees to enter stock information for the day.

• Every day, pull the latest subscription data from the Stripe API to add or update rows in a table.

App Interaction Trigger

The App Interaction Trigger begins with a user interaction, like clicking a button or submitting a form.

How to use the App Interaction Trigger:

• When a user clicks a button to purchase an inventory item, the workflow retrieves data about that item and automatically sends an email to an admin if the stock level is low.

• When a user marks a project as complete, the workflow updates the status in the app, sends email notifications to stakeholders, and generates a final project summary report.

• When a user closes a deal by clicking "Won", the workflow calculates commission, updates sales targets, and emails the sales manager with deal details.

Webhook Trigger

The Webhook Trigger lets your app respond automatically when it receives data from external services. Instead of users manually updating information, your app updates itself when it gets POST requests from other tools.

How to use the Webhook Trigger:

• When Stripe processes a payment, the customer’s subscription status is updated in your app, and a confirmation email is sent.

• When a new lead is added in Hubspot, a customer profile is added to your app, and a sales rep is assigned.

• When someone submits a form via TypeForm, your app adds the response to a database and schedules a follow-up task.

Email Trigger

The Email Trigger starts a workflow when emails arrive at a specific inbox.

How to use the Email Trigger:

• When an invoice arrives at billing@company.com, the app assigns it to accounts payable for review.

• When a job application arrives at hiring@company.com, the app creates a candidate profile and schedules an initial screening.

• When a customer emails support@company.com, the app categorizes request priority and assigns it to an available team member.

Start using intelligent automation with Workflows

Workflows will help you build tools that work autonomously, saving time and effort for the teams using them. 

Combine this with Glide AI, and your apps gain the power to make nuanced decisions, analyze information, and generate original content. Your tools become more than just automated–they become intelligent automation assistants that complete tasks with your business’ context in mind.

Build sophisticated, AI-powered tools that automate complex tasks, letting your team focus on what matters most.

Workflows Glossary

• Workflow: A combination of steps that are executed in a specific order. A workflow consists of one or more steps, such as actions or computations, started by a trigger.

• Step: An individual operation within a workflow. It can be an action (e.g., sending an email, updating a record), a computation (e.g., performing calculations), or other types of steps (e.g., conditional branching).

• Action: A specific operation or task performed within a workflow step. Actions can be native to Glide (e.g., Show detail screen, Add row) or integration actions that interact with external services or applications (e.g., send a Slack notification, send an email with Gmail).

• Trigger: An event that initiates a workflow. Currently, triggers can be a user interaction (e.g., button click, form submission), schedule (e.g., recurring intervals, specific times), webhook (external events), or email trigger.