Workflows Overview

Workflows let you automate structured business processes that involve multiple steps, human approvals, and agent-driven actions. Instead of manually coordinating tasks between people and systems, you define the process once and let Sprigr Teams handle the rest.

Think of a workflow as a recipe: you lay out the steps in order, decide who (or which agent) handles each one, and set checkpoints where a human needs to review or approve before things move forward.

Key concepts

Before building your first workflow, it helps to understand four core ideas:

Steps

A step is a single action within a workflow. Each step is assigned to an agent and describes what that agent should do — for example, “Draft a welcome email for the new hire” or “Look up the customer’s order history.” Steps run in sequence by default, but you can also set up parallel branches where multiple steps run at the same time.

There are several types of steps including action steps (the agent performs a task), condition steps (if/else branching), fork steps (split into parallel paths), join steps (merge parallel paths back together), and pipe steps (pass the output of one step directly into the next).

Gates

Gates are checkpoints between steps. They control whether the workflow moves forward automatically or pauses for human involvement. There are three gate types:

• Auto — The workflow advances to the next step immediately after the current step completes. No human input needed.
• Review — The workflow pauses so someone can check the agent’s work before it continues. Useful for quality control.
• Approval — The workflow pauses and requires explicit approval from an authorised person before proceeding. Designed for decisions that need sign-off.

Triggers

Triggers determine how a workflow starts running. There are three trigger types:

• Manual — A team member starts the workflow by clicking a button in the portal. Best for on-demand processes.
• Event — An external event (like a webhook or an integration event) automatically kicks off the workflow. Best for processes that should start in response to something happening in another system.
• Schedule — The workflow runs on a recurring schedule (daily, weekly, or at a specific time). Best for routine tasks like daily reports or weekly check-ins.

Executions

An execution is a single running instance of a workflow. Every time a workflow is triggered, a new execution is created. You can have multiple executions of the same workflow running at the same time — for example, if three new employees start on the same day, you would have three separate executions of your onboarding workflow.

Each execution tracks its own progress, step results, and approval states independently.

When to use workflows vs chat

Not every task needs a workflow. Here is a simple way to decide:

Use a workflow when:

• The process has a defined sequence of steps that should happen in order
• Multiple people or agents need to be involved at different stages
• You need an audit trail showing who approved what and when
• The process should run the same way every time (consistency matters)
• Human approval or review is required at certain points

Use a regular chat conversation when:

• You have a one-off question or task
• The interaction is conversational and open-ended
• You need a quick answer and do not need approvals or multi-step coordination
• The task involves only one agent

Tip

Workflows and chat are complementary. An agent in a chat conversation can trigger a workflow when it detects that a structured process is needed — for example, if a customer asks for a refund, the agent can kick off the refund approval workflow automatically.

Try asking your agent

“Create a workflow that runs when a new customer enquiry comes in: first the Help Desk agent triages the request, then the Scheduling agent checks availability, and finally the admin gets an approval notification before confirming the booking.”

Common use cases

Employee onboarding

Automatically send welcome emails, create accounts, assign training materials, and schedule orientation meetings when a new employee joins. Gate each step so HR can review before proceeding.

Incident response

When a critical issue is reported, automatically gather diagnostic information, notify the on-call team, create a ticket, and escalate if the issue is not resolved within a set timeframe.

Content approval

Route blog posts, social media updates, or marketing materials through a review and approval chain. The content agent drafts, a reviewer checks quality, and a manager gives final approval before publishing.

Customer refunds

When a refund is requested, verify the order, check the refund policy, calculate the amount, and route to the appropriate approver based on the refund value. Automatically process approved refunds.

Next steps

Ready to build your first workflow? Continue with these guides:

• Creating Workflows — Step-by-step instructions for building a workflow from scratch.
• Steps & Gates — Detailed reference for all step types and gate configurations.
• Workflow Execution — Learn how to monitor, troubleshoot, and manage running workflows.