How Workflows Work
Versions and the draft-publish lifecycle
Workflows are versioned. Here’s how it works:
When you create a new workflow (or edit an existing one), your changes go into a draft version.
Use Save Draft to save changes; the editor does not automatically save every edit.
When you’re ready to go live, you click Publish. This freezes the draft into a permanent, numbered version and immediately makes it the active, enabled version.
From that point on, any trigger firing uses the published version. If you need to make changes, you edit the workflow again — a new draft is created, and the live version keeps running unchanged until you publish again.
This design means an edit you’re working on can’t accidentally affect runs that are already in progress. A member who’s mid-way through a multi-day workflow sequence stays on the version that was live when their run started, even if you publish a new version tomorrow.
Key states a workflow can be in:
State
What it means
Draft only
Created but never published. Trigger never fires.
Published, enabled
Live. Trigger fires. New runs are created when triggered.
Published, disabled
Automatic triggers and record actions are paused; in-progress runs were cancelled. Test Run can still start a real run.
Published + new draft
A live version is running, and you’re working on the next version.

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