¶ Workflow Builder Overview
For admins. This section covers how to design and configure workflows. If you're new to Planally, read the Planally Essentials pages first. They show how the workflows you build here are used day to day.
The Workflow Builder is where admins design the structure every project will follow. A well-built workflow gives your teams consistency, automation, and governance from the moment they create a project.
Everything is set up from Configuration, at the bottom of the workflow's side menu. Only Workflow Admins and administrators see it.
¶ The Build Sequence
Building a workflow follows a clear order. Each step builds on the last:
- Create & Configure the Workflow: name, labels, phases, visibility, Workflow Admins and Workflow Users, roles, and Simple Config.
- Form Builder: design the forms activities and registers use, with formulas for anything calculated.
- Templates, Swimlanes & Activities: organise activities into swimlanes and create activity templates.
- Setting Up Registers (optional): give every project structured lists such as risks or issues.
- Designing Roadmaps: place activities in phases, set permissions and Permission Inheritance, and publish.
- Building Dashboards (optional): create dashboards for your teams and leadership.
Once a roadmap is published, people can choose it when creating projects, and your whole structure is applied automatically.
¶ How the Pieces Relate
- A Workflow holds everything: phases, roles, swimlanes, forms, activity templates, registers, and roadmaps.
- Forms define what information is captured, and can calculate values with formulas.
- Activity Templates use a form and sit in a swimlane.
- Registers use a form to keep lists of records in every project.
- Roadmaps arrange activity templates across phases, with permissions, for new projects.
- Roles and permissions decide who can see, do, and approve what. See Roles & Permissions.
See Core Concepts & Glossary for full definitions.
¶ Before You Start
- Plan your phases: the number and order of phases can't be changed once the workflow is created.
- Decide the Project Visibility Policy: Per Project, Public, or Private. It can't be changed later either.
- Choose your labels: what your teams call a project and an activity.
- Define roles early so they can be used in roadmap permissions.
- Assign at least one Workflow Admin, and a backup.