Building in the Editor

The workflow editor is the visual canvas where you design your workflow. This page explains how to use it.

Opening the editor

Go to Workflows in the left sidebar.
Click an existing workflow to open it, or click New Workflow to start from scratch.

When creating a new workflow, you’ll first enter a name and choose a record type — or start from a template (see below). Once you confirm, the editor opens with the canvas ready to go.

Starting from a template

Instead of building a workflow from a blank canvas, you can start from a pre-built template. Templates are pre-configured workflows for common scenarios — the trigger and steps are already filled in, and you can tweak them to fit your school.

When you click New Workflow, you’ll see a template picker before the blank-canvas option:

Browse templates by category (Members, Communication, Finance, Automation), or search by name.
Click a template to select it. Its name and record type are filled in automatically.
Click Create to open the editor with the template’s trigger and steps already in place, ready to review and adjust.

Templates currently available include:

Template	Category	What it does
Welcome New Member	Members	Adds a welcome note whenever a new member is created
Birthday Reminder Note	Members	Birthday-themed note using the stored full birth date, not an annual reminder
Promote to Next Level	Members	Manual workflow — select a membership and promote it to the next belt or level
New Member — Lead vs. Full Member	Members	When a member is created, adds a follow-up note for leads or a welcome note for full members
Weekly New Lead Follow-Up	Communication	Every Monday, adds a follow-up note to every new lead that hasn’t been contacted yet
Open Overdue Invoice	Finance	One day after an invoice is due, automatically opens it for collection
Cancel No-Show Bookings	Automation	Manual workflow — select bookings and cancel them in bulk for no-shows
Mark Class Attendance	Automation	Manual workflow — mark selected bookings as attended in bulk

A template is a starting point. Creating it saves a draft, not a live workflow. Review the trigger and every step, then save and publish only when ready.

The canvas

The canvas is a visual space where your workflow’s trigger and steps appear as nodes connected by arrows. The flow runs left to right — the trigger is on the left and each subsequent step connects to the right.

At the top of the canvas, you’ll always see:

Save Draft button — saves your current changes without publishing.
Publish button — makes the current draft live immediately.
Enabled/Disabled toggle — turns the published workflow on or off.
Navigation links to Runs and Versions history.
A help icon that opens this documentation in a new tab.

Adding a trigger

Every workflow needs a trigger. Click the Trigger node on the canvas to configure it.

A panel opens where you choose the trigger type and fill in the details:

Manual — no settings needed.
Action Event Occurs — choose the event type from a searchable list.
Condition Becomes True / Stops Being True — build a filter using the filter builder.
Scheduled Time Field Due — choose a date field and enter the offset in days. A hint reminds you that negative numbers run before the date and positive numbers run after, along with a live preview (e.g. “3 days before Contract End Date”) so you can confirm the direction before saving.
Recurring Schedule — choose a preset (daily, weekly, monthly) or enter a cron expression, and optionally add a filter for fan-out.

See Triggers for a full explanation of each type.

Exit conditions

Below the Trigger bar, you’ll see an Exit condition bar. Click it to open the exit condition editor.

By default it says “None — run always continues to completion.” To add one:

Click the Exit condition bar.
Build a filter using the same filter builder used for Branch steps and condition-based triggers.
Click Save exit condition.

Once set, Kanri checks this filter before each step executes. If the run’s record matches, the run is cancelled before that step. This does not continuously monitor a sleeping delay or interrupt an action already in progress.

See How Workflows Work for why this is different from a Delay step’s re-check trigger condition option.

Adding steps

To add a step after an existing node, click the + button on the right side of that node. Choose the step type from the menu: Action, Delay, Branch, Switch, Read, or For Each.

To insert a step between two connected nodes, drag the new step node onto the + button that appears in the middle of the arrow connecting them. The step is inserted and the connections are updated automatically.

Configuring a step

Click any step node to open its settings panel. The settings available depend on the step type:

Action step:

Choose the action from a searchable list (e.g., “Send message”, “Promote to next level”).
For an action on an existing record, choose Workflow record or Expression. Expression lets you reference a record ID, including one returned by an earlier step. Create actions show that they create a new record instead.
Fill in the action’s required and optional fields.
Use the [$] button next to any field to reference data from the triggered record or from a previous step’s output.
Optionally enable Continue on error to skip this step if it fails.

Delay step:

Choose Fixed time or Until date field.
For fixed time: enter the number of minutes, hours, or days.
Optionally set an execution window (only resume on certain days or times).
Review Recheck trigger, which starts on for new delays. Read the condition and recurring-filter rules. Condition Stops Being True checks that the original filter remains false.

Branch step:

Build the condition using the filter builder.
Connect the if true output to one step, and the if false output to another.

Switch step:

Choose Match first (take the first matching case’s path) or Match all (take every matching case’s path).
Add, reorder, or remove cases; build each case’s condition with the filter builder.
Connect each case’s output to its own step, and connect the default output to a fallback step for when nothing matches.

Read step:

Choose the record type, build a filter, and select the fields you want. Fields and related records include descriptions beneath their names to help you choose the right information.

For Each step:

Choose the record type, build a filter, and set a limit (the maximum number of records to process per run).
Add the steps that should run for each matched record, inside the loop body.

Renaming a step

By default, a step’s name on the canvas summarizes its settings (for example, a Branch step shows its condition). Click the step’s name in its settings panel and type your own label to override this — useful for giving a step a clearer, more memorable name in a complex workflow. Clear the label to go back to the automatic summary.

Connecting steps

Each node has a + connector on its right side. Click it to add a next step, or drag a new node onto it.

Action, Delay, and Read steps have one outgoing connection.
For Each has a loop-body connection and an After connection for continuing when its child runs complete.
Branch steps have two outgoing connections: “if true” and “if false”.
Switch steps have one outgoing connection per case, plus one for “default”.
A step with no outgoing connection is a terminal step — the run ends there.

Deleting a step

Click the step you want to delete and click Delete in its settings panel. When you delete a step that sits between two other connected steps, Kanri automatically reconnects the surrounding steps so your flow stays intact.

Saving your work

Use the Save Draft button to save your changes. The draft is not live until you publish it — saving just preserves your work in progress.

Publishing

When your workflow is ready, click Publish. Kanri validates the workflow first:

Every step must be reachable from the trigger (no disconnected orphan steps).
Required fields must be filled in.
Action targets must match the selected action’s expected record type.

If there are errors, they’ll appear inline on the affected nodes. Fix them and try publishing again.

Once published, the workflow is immediately live and its trigger starts firing.

Viewing a previous version

To see what an older version of a workflow looked like:

Click Versions in the editor toolbar.
Select a published version from the list.
The canvas opens in read-only mode showing exactly what that version contained.

Next steps

Publish and Enable — the full publish lifecycle
Version History — understanding workflow versions
Run History — monitoring runs and debugging issues
How Workflows Work — core concepts, including exit conditions