Workflows are Softalon's automations. A workflow waits for something to happen in your salon, like a new booking or a client's birthday, and then runs a series of steps on its own, such as sending a reminder by email and SMS. You find them under Workflows in the sidebar.
Only members with the Super Administrator or Owner role see the Workflows page and can create, change or delete workflows.
The parts of a workflow
Every workflow is a chain of steps that you build in a visual editor. Each step is a node on the canvas.
If you connect an integration that offers workflow actions, its actions also appear in the Add Node list.
Triggers
The trigger decides when a run starts. Most triggers are events in your salon, like Appointment - Confirmed or Invoice - Overdue. Some are time based, like Appointment - Upcoming (24h) or Client - Birthday. Two triggers don't depend on an event at all: Webhook starts a workflow when another system sends a request to its URL, and Manual starts it when you click Run.
See Workflow triggers explained for the full list and when each one fires.
Runs
Each time the trigger fires, Softalon starts a new run of the workflow. A run moves through the steps one at a time. When it reaches a Wait/Delay step, it pauses and continues later on its own.
Every run is saved in the workflow's History, with a status and the result of each step. See Check workflow runs and failures.
A run that completes isn't proof that every message went out. A Send Notification step can skip a message, for example when the recipient has no email address, and the run still continues. Open the run in History to see what each step did.
The active switch
Each workflow card on the Workflows page has a switch. When it's on, the workflow is active and starts runs. When it's off, nothing new starts.
Turning a workflow off also stops runs that are still in progress, for example runs that are paused on a Wait/Delay step. They show as Canceled in History.
Saving changes to a workflow's steps also cancels its runs that are still in progress. New runs use the new version.
A new workflow is active as soon as you create it. A workflow with no steps, or one that only has the Start Workflow step, does nothing until you finish it.
Limits per plan
Your plan sets how many workflows can be active at the same time, and which steps you can use. Inactive workflows don't count toward the limit.
When you reach the limit, you can't create or turn on another workflow until you turn one off. See Plans compared.
If you move to a plan with fewer workflows, Softalon turns off what the new plan doesn't cover. Workflows that use a step the plan doesn't include are turned off first. If you still have more active workflows than the limit, the oldest ones stay on and the newest are turned off.
Workflows also only run while your salon has an active subscription.
Default workflows
When your salon's subscription starts, Softalon adds a set of ready-made workflows in your salon's language, such as appointment confirmations and reminders. It only does this for salons that have no workflows yet, and only as many as your plan allows. The setup wizard also lets you pick which ones you want. See Complete the setup wizard.
Content checks
Workflow messages must be transactional, like confirmations, reminders and review requests. When you save, Softalon checks new and changed Send Notification steps and the overall flow. If a message looks like marketing or spam, or if an SMS or WhatsApp message links to a site outside Softalon, the save fails and you see the reason. Email can link to other sites. A workflow you create from a template isn't checked when it's created, because the template's content is already approved, but your later changes are.
Common questions
Yes. The app calls them workflows. This Help Center uses both words.