Workflows

A workflow acts on the responses of one published survey. It starts with a trigger, such as a new response, and then runs the steps wired after it: an action in a connected tool, a notification to teammates, a branch or a wait. Workflows are in the Workflows section of the rail. They are available on the Starter plan and above, and working with them requires the Manage workflows permission.

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How a workflow runs

• One survey. Each workflow belongs to one survey that has been published. The workflow reads that survey’s answers and runs on that survey’s responses. A survey can have any number of workflows.
• A trigger. The trigger says what starts the workflow and which responses start it. See Choose what starts the workflow.
• Steps. Each step does one thing. An action step sends something to a tool or notifies teammates, If / else takes its Yes or No side, and Wait holds the run before the next step.
• Runs. Each response that starts the workflow becomes a run. The run follows the wires from the trigger, step by step, and ends at a step that leads nowhere.

A workflow has one of these statuses: Edits never change what runs until they are published. While a published workflow has edits that aren’t published yet, its status reads Unpublished changes.

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Find a workflow

The Workflows page lists the workflows on the left, grouped by survey. Workflows that have no survey yet are under No survey yet. The views above the list narrow it by trigger: All workflows, New response, After AI analysis, Urgent response and Threshold alert, each with a count. Each row shows the workflow’s status as a dot, its name and how many runs it sent in the last 7 days, such as “12 sent”. Extra dots mark what needs attention, and hovering the row names it: Failed runs, Unpublished changes or Paused because its survey was deleted. To open one survey’s workflows from the Surveys list, select Workflows in the menu of a live or paused survey. Selecting a workflow opens it for viewing. The line under its name shows its status and its last 7 days, such as “12 sent in 7 days”, with the failed and skipped runs and Last run. Anyone with the permission can view a workflow while someone else edits it.

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Create a workflow

A workflow is set up for a survey that has been published. Until a survey is published, choosing a template or a blank workflow shows “A workflow is set up for a published survey. Publish a survey first.”

• Templates start from a ready-made flow, such as Urgent responses to Slack, Bugs to Jira or Follow up on at-risk customers. Search templates finds a template by its name or description, and the chips narrow the list to Alerts, Tickets, Customers or Records.
• Blank workflow asks for a Workflow name, then opens a canvas that holds only the trigger.
• Build with AI draws the flow from what you describe. See Build a workflow with AI.

When the window was opened for one survey, or when only one survey is published, the new workflow is set up for that survey. Each action step starts with the connection and the settings the organization chose the last time it used that action, so the step asks only for what is still missing. After a website, link or QR survey is published for the first time, Usertick asks Send responses to your tools?, and Add workflow opens the create window for that survey.

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Build a workflow with AI

The chat opens with What should happen after a response?. Describe it in a sentence, in any language, or select an idea under Start from an idea, such as Urgent to Slack or Bugs to Jira. The AI then asks a few questions, each with answers to select:

• Which survey is this workflow for? The answers show up to 20 of the newest published surveys, and Find a survey under them finds any other published survey. The question is skipped when the window was opened for one survey or when only one survey is published.
• Which responses should start it? For example Every response, Urgent responses, Bug reports or Customers at risk of leaving.
• Which tools should it use? A tool that isn’t connected is marked Not connected.
• Anything to add before I draw it?

The AI then draws the flow step by step. Each message after that changes the drawn flow, and Follow up if still open and Urgent responses only offer two common changes. Stop keeps the steps drawn so far, and Continue draws the rest. When the chat can’t build part of the request, the draft lists what it left out after “The workflow chat can’t do these here:”. Nothing is created until you name the workflow under Workflow name and select Create workflow. An unfinished chat stays in your browser, and the next time the window opens, Continue where you left off offers Continue chat and Discard. Each flow the AI draws uses one AI workflow from the plan’s monthly allowance, and changes to that flow in the same chat don’t use another. Starter includes 10 AI workflows a month, Pro 50 and Business 200. When the allowance is used up, the chat shows “You have used this month’s AI workflows” with the date it renews, and templates and blank workflows still work.

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Choose what starts the workflow

In edit mode, selecting the trigger card opens its panel. Starts sets the event, and Survey sets the survey: A response that the AI doesn’t read, such as one with a single score, still starts an After AI analysis workflow, and its AI fields are empty. Only if limits the workflow to the responses that meet its conditions. Add condition adds a row with a field, a comparison and a value. With two or more conditions, select All conditions or Any condition. A condition can test:

• An answer to any question of the survey, and for an NPS question its NPS group: Promoter, Passive or Detractor.
• The AI analysis: AI category, AI theme, AI type, AI sentiment, AI urgency, AI customer risk, AI satisfaction, AI effort, AI churn risk and AI spam likelihood, and the category, theme, type and sentiment of each written answer.
• The respondent: Identified, Verified identity, Linked to a contact, User ID, Respondent email, Respondent name, Company, Trait and the Contact question fields.
• The response: Country, Language, Variant, Source and Page URL.

A workflow that reads the AI analysis, in a condition, in a message or in a step setting such as Match the AI urgency, has to start After AI analysis or When a response becomes urgent. Otherwise the step or the trigger that reads it shows “This step reads the AI analysis, so the workflow has to start after AI analysis.”

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How conditions compare values

Conditions compare values by these rules:

• Text. Answers to text and Contact details questions are compared as text, and so are Respondent email, Respondent name, Company, Trait and the Contact question fields. The comparison ignores letter case, and the Turkish İ and ı count as i, so “I”, “İ”, “ı” and “i” all match each other. Compatibility forms of a character, such as full-width letters, read as the plain character, and repeated spaces and spaces at the start or end are ignored. Accents count, so “ürün” doesn’t match “urun”.
• User ID. User ID is compared exactly as written, letter case included. Only spaces at the start or end are ignored.
• Language. Language compares the base language without the region. A condition with en-US matches a response in en or en-GB, and a condition with en matches a response in en-US.
• Page URL. A pattern that starts with / is tested against the page’s path, so the domain and the query string don’t count. With matches pattern, an expression that starts with ^/ is tested against the path too. Any other pattern is tested against the full URL, and a leading www. on the domain is ignored on both sides.

Page URL conditions also follow these rules:

• Letter case is ignored, and encoded characters such as %20 are decoded before the comparison.
• is ignores the query string. is and starts with also ignore the scheme (https://) when the pattern has none.
• is and ends with ignore one trailing slash.
• A pattern that ends in /* matches that page and every page under it. /blog/* matches /blog and /blog/launch, and it doesn’t match /blogs.
• matches pattern takes a regular expression, ignores letter case and is tried on the decoded URL, then on the URL as sent. A workflow with an expression that isn’t a valid regular expression can’t be published.

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Add steps

In edit mode, the column on the left lists the steps under Add a step. Search steps filters the list.

• Logic holds If / else and Wait.
• Connected tools holds the actions of the tools the organization has connected, with Usertick’s own Notify teammates first.
• More tools holds the actions of the tools that aren’t connected yet, each with Connect.
• With Zapier holds 62 tools that Usertick reaches through a Zap in Zapier, such as Salesforce, Pipedrive and Notion. See Send to a tool with Zapier.

To add a step, select it in the list, or drag it onto the canvas. A step selected in the list is wired after the selected card. A step dropped on a wire goes between the two cards it joins. A wire dragged from a card and let go on an empty spot opens Add a step here, and the step chosen there is wired to that card. When the tool of a chosen step isn’t connected yet, and your role has the Manage integrations permission, Usertick opens the tool’s connect panel first and adds the step after the tool connects. Without that permission, the step is added and shows a notice such as “Slack is not connected yet.” until someone connects the tool. A Send to a webhook step works the same way while the organization has no webhook: Connect asks for a name and a URL, then shows the new webhook’s signing secret once. Selecting a card opens its panel on the right:

• Connection selects which of the tool’s connections the step uses, when the organization has more than one.
• The step’s settings follow, as each tool’s guide describes. In a message, Insert field adds answers, response details, AI fields, survey details or respondent details.
• A list in the settings, such as Slack channels or HubSpot owners, shows up to 200 matches. When more match, the list says “The first 200 matches are shown. Type to narrow the list.” When the tool has more than Usertick can list, the list says so, for example “Slack has more than Usertick can list here, so some aren’t shown.”
• Then shows where the flow goes after the step, with Remove wire on each wire.
• The trash icon deletes the step.

These are the actions a step can run:

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Send to a tool with Zapier

A step under With Zapier hands the response to a Zap in Zapier, and the Zap does the tool’s action. The step’s panel says whether a Zap is on for the step, and its Create the Zap in Zapier opens Zapier with the Usertick trigger Workflow Step and the tool’s action already selected. The workflow can be published only while a Zap is on for each of these steps, and a Test run skips them, because the Zap would run for real. An alert has no response to hand over, so its step list has no With Zapier group. See Tools with Zapier.

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Notify teammates

Notify teammates sends a notification to the members selected under Teammates, with a Title and a Message. Each teammate receives it as a Workflow message, in the bell and in the other channels their notification settings turn on. The notification opens the response, or the survey’s results for an alert. A teammate who left the organization, or whose role doesn’t reach the survey, isn’t notified. When none of the selected teammates can be notified, the step sends nothing.

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Branch with If / else

If / else checks its Conditions when the run reaches it. A run that meets them takes the Yes side, and any other run takes the No side. Besides the fields the trigger can test, a branch can test Inbox status at that moment, the response’s status in the inbox when the branch is checked. After a Wait, a branch on that status lets a workflow act only on a response that is still open.

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Wait before the next step

Wait holds the run for the time set under Wait for, in Minutes, Hours or Days, from 1 minute up to 30 days. The run then continues to the next step.

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Arrange the canvas

Cards can be dragged to any spot, and a wire is drawn by dragging from a card’s port to another card. Selecting a wire opens its panel, where Remove wire deletes it. Zoom in, Zoom out, Fit to view and Tidy up sit on the canvas. Undo and Redo sit at the top of the page, and the keys are listed under Keyboard shortcuts.

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Alert when a number crosses a line

With When a number crosses a line under Starts, the workflow runs on a number of its survey instead of on each response. The trigger’s panel sets the alert: Usertick checks the number every hour. NPS, averages and shares count only after the window has 30 responses. An alert has no response behind it, so it has no Only if conditions and no If / else. Its steps can be Wait, Post a message in Slack or Microsoft Teams, and Notify teammates. Each message step starts with the alert’s own words: a headline such as “NPS fell below 30 on Checkout feedback”, then a line with the numbers. The Alert group in Insert field holds Headline, Detail line, Current number, Previous period number and Link to the results. A chat post for an alert is one message with an Open results button, without response buttons.

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Test a workflow

Test run runs the workflow once, immediately, while you edit it. Unsaved changes are saved first, and a workflow with something left to fix can’t be tested. The test runs on the survey’s latest response, or on a sample response when the survey has none. Each step sends a real message or record labeled as a test, except where a tool’s guide says that its test only checks the tool, and a Wait doesn’t hold the run. A test run never appears in the workflow’s activity. Each step in the result shows one of these outcomes: When the latest response doesn’t meet the trigger’s conditions, the window says “This response does not meet the trigger’s conditions, so no step ran.” and Run anyway runs the steps on it regardless. For an alert, the test measures the number as it is now, such as “The number is 27 now, and the line is 30.”, and runs the steps only when the number is past the line, unless you select Run anyway.

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Publish a workflow

Edits save themselves as a draft. The line under the name shows Saving…, Saved or Unsaved changes, and the published version keeps running until the draft is published. To fix before publishing lists what stops the publish, and Fix opens the step that has it. For example, a step without a connection shows “Choose a connection that still works.”, and a workflow whose survey has never been published shows “This survey has not been published yet. Publish the survey, then publish the workflow.” Worth checking before publishing lists warnings that don’t block the publish, such as a condition that names a category or theme that was deleted in Settings. The first publish turns the workflow on. A later publish leaves the workflow on, off or paused as it was, except for a workflow that a change to its survey paused, which the publish turns back on. A workflow can have up to 50 connected steps. Leaving edit mode after changing a published workflow asks Leave without publishing?. Keep as draft keeps the changes for later, Discard changes goes back to the published version, and Publish publishes them. One person edits a workflow at a time. While someone edits, the workflow is read-only for everyone else, with “Maya Lin is editing this workflow, so it is read-only for you.” Take over switches the other person to read-only, and their saved version loads first, so none of their saved work is lost. When your edit lock expired while the workflow was open and nobody else took it, the editor takes the lock back and saves what is pending. When someone saved the workflow in between, the editor loads the latest version and says “The edit lock expired, so the editor loaded the latest version of this workflow.” When nobody saved it in between, nothing on screen changes.

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Turn a workflow on or off, duplicate or delete it

While a workflow is open for viewing, the More actions menu next to Edit workflow holds:

• Turn on and Turn off. A workflow that is off runs nothing. Runs that are still in progress, such as one in a wait, end without sending, and the activity shows “The workflow was turned off.” Turn on is available only after the first publish.
• Duplicate workflow, which creates a copy named “Copy of” followed by the name. The copy is a draft and opens in edit mode.
• Delete, which asks for the workflow’s name first. The workflow and its run history are deleted, runs in progress stop, and the deletion can’t be undone. The Zaps that its Zapier steps sent to stay on in Zapier and receive nothing more.

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Check what a workflow did

Activity at the top of a published workflow opens its runs from the last 30 days, newest first. Each run shows its status, its time and its attempt: Show details shows the Response data the run started from and each step with what was Sent and what was Received. A tool’s own error message stays behind Show the provider’s message.

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When a step fails

• Temporary problems. When a tool doesn’t answer or has a temporary problem, Usertick tries the step again after 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour and 6 hours, and the run shows Retrying.
• Rate limits. When a tool asks Usertick to slow down, the step waits as long as the tool asks, up to an hour at a time, and then tries again. Waiting doesn’t count as a failed attempt.
• A failed run. A step that still fails, or fails for a reason another try can’t fix, such as a refused setting, ends the run there, and the steps after it don’t run. After the cause is fixed, Retry on the run in Activity queues it again from the step that failed.
• A skipped step. A step with nothing to send for a response, such as an event tool’s step for a response without a user ID, is skipped, and the run continues to the next step. A skip never counts as a failure.

After 20 failed runs in a row, Usertick pauses the workflow. Members whose role has the Manage workflows permission receive “A workflow was paused”, which names the workflow and links to it. While the workflow is paused this way, Usertick keeps the responses that would have started it, up to 1,000 and for up to 7 days. After you fix the failing step, select Turn on, and the kept responses run in the order they arrived. When a tool rejects its connection, members whose role has the Manage integrations permission receive a notification, such as “Slack is failing” or “Slack was disconnected”, at most once a day for each connection. See each tool’s guide for its own limits and errors.

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When the survey changes

When a new version of a survey removes or changes something that a workflow on it reads, Usertick pauses the workflow as the survey is published:

• a question the workflow reads is removed or changes to another type,
• an option that a condition checks for is removed,
• the scale or range of a question that a condition or an alert compares on changes,
• a variant that a condition names is removed.

Before such a publish, the survey editor lists the workflows it pauses under Publishing pauses a workflow, and after the publish it names them again with Open workflows. Members whose role has the Manage workflows permission receive “A workflow was paused”. A workflow paused this way doesn’t turn on with Turn on. It runs again after you edit it, fix what it reads and select Publish workflow, even when the draft has nothing new to publish. A language that the survey drops doesn’t pause a workflow whose conditions name it. The workflow keeps running, and Usertick warns that its conditions may now match differently. When the survey is deleted, its workflows are paused with Its survey was deleted. To use such a workflow again, choose another survey in its trigger and publish it.

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Plans and limits

• Each tool’s step requires a plan that includes the tool. A step for a tool the plan doesn’t include shows “Your plan doesn’t include this tool.” and blocks publishing.
• An organization can have any number of workflows, and a survey any number of workflows.
• A workflow holds up to 50 connected steps, and a Wait lasts from 1 minute to 30 days.
• Activity keeps the last 30 days of runs.
• If the organization’s plan no longer includes workflows, or a tool a workflow uses, the workflow stops sending, and each run is skipped with “Your plan does not include this tool.” The workflow keeps its setup and its connections stay connected, and the workflows list shows “Your plan doesn’t include this, so it stopped. To turn it back on, upgrade to .” with the plan it needs. After an upgrade it runs again for new responses; the runs skipped meanwhile aren’t run again.

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Who can use workflows

Creating, editing, publishing, testing, turning on and off and deleting workflows require the Manage workflows permission. The Owner, Admin and Developer roles have it by default. The Workflows item in the rail appears only for roles with this permission. Connecting a tool from a step also requires the Manage integrations permission. See Members and roles.