A visual workflow designer lets you build an automation by placing a trigger and a chain of steps on a canvas, so the logic is something you can see and point at rather than something buried in settings. On the levelpartner.ai platform the designer lives under Automation, and every workflow you draw there runs against your real contacts, calendars and pipelines. This article answers one question: how to lay out a workflow on the canvas so that it works on day one and is still readable by someone else in six months.
What the designer gives you
The canvas shows one trigger at the top and the steps below it in the order they run. Each step is a box: send an email, send a text, wait, add a tag, move an opportunity, create a task, branch on a condition. Branches split the line into two or more paths, and each path continues on its own until it ends or rejoins nothing.
The value for a firm of 40 or 80 people is shared understanding. Your sales lead, your operations manager and the person who builds the automation can all look at the same picture and agree on what happens to a new enquiry. That conversation used to happen in a spreadsheet or a whiteboard photo, and the build never quite matched it.
Before you start
- Write the process in plain sentences first: what starts it, what should happen, and when it stops.
- Decide the single outcome the workflow exists to produce, such as a booked call or a paid invoice.
- Check the custom fields, tags and pipeline stages the workflow will read or change already exist.
- Have a test contact that uses your own email address and mobile number.
- Confirm who is allowed to publish workflows, so drafts are not switched on by accident.
How to set it up
- Open Workflows under Automation, click Create Workflow and start from scratch.
- Click Add New Trigger and choose the event that starts the automation.
- Add trigger filters if only some contacts should enter, such as one form or one calendar.
- Click Add Action and select the first step, usually the fastest response you can send.
- Use Add Action again for every wait, if/else branch and follow-up, in the order a contact meets them.
- Click Test Workflow, select your test contact and click Run Test for every branch.
- Click Save whenever the red dot shows unsaved changes.
- Use the Draft/Publish toggle to publish only once each path has passed and the process owner has signed it off.
Designing for the person who reads it next
Most canvases fail not because the logic is wrong but because nobody else can follow it. Three habits fix that. Keep one workflow to one outcome. Keep the main path running straight down the middle, with exceptions branching off to the side. Name every step by what it does for the customer, not by what it is: "Confirm booking by text" says more than "SMS 2".
When a canvas grows past twenty or so boxes, split it. A long nurture sequence belongs in its own workflow, triggered when the first one adds a tag. The workflow creator guide covers who should own each canvas and when not to build one at all, and the article on process flow automation shows how to break a long process into linked stages.
Imagine a workflow with 38 steps on one canvas, covering nurture emails, booking reminders and no-show follow-up, that nobody but its builder will touch. Split it into three workflows of 9, 12 and 8 steps joined by tags, and the enquiry path becomes short enough for a sales director to read in a couple of minutes. That is when mistakes surface, such as a wait step set to 24 hours that should be 15 minutes. The step counts are illustrative.
What it replaces and the weekly time
The designer replaces two things: the manual checklist your team follows after each enquiry, and the separate automation tool that sits outside your CRM and breaks whenever a field name changes. Because the canvas reads the same contact record your team works from, there is no sync to maintain.
Building a typical workflow takes one to three hours, including testing. Running it takes almost nothing. Budget around thirty minutes a week to review the workflows that matter most: check the enrolment history, look for contacts stuck at a wait step, and read any replies that the automation could not handle.
The mistake most people make
They design the happy path only. The canvas makes it easy to draw what happens when a lead books straight away, and easy to forget what happens when they reply "not now", when the mobile number is wrong, or when they book through a different link. Each of those needs a branch or an exit, or the contact keeps receiving messages that no longer fit.
Leaving a workflow without exit conditions. If a contact books a call, the follow-up texts asking them to book must stop. Add a goal or a removal step tied to the booking, and test it.
When not to use it
Do not draw a workflow for a process that happens twice a month and needs judgement each time. A task list or a saved template is quicker. Do not use the canvas to model a process nobody has agreed on yet; drawing it will not settle the argument. And do not automate a step you have never done by hand, because you will not know what a good result looks like.
Troubleshooting
Contacts enter the workflow twice. The trigger fires on every update, not just the first. Tighten the trigger filter, or turn off re-entry in the workflow settings if you only ever want one pass.
A branch never fires. The condition reads a field that is empty or spelled differently. Open a test contact, check the exact value, and match it in the branch.
Messages go out at night. The wait step counts hours, not working hours. Add a time window or a wait-until step so sends land during the day.
Edits did not change anything. You edited a draft but the published version is still running. Save and republish, then check the history to confirm new contacts follow the new path.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need any coding to use the visual designer?
No. Every step is chosen from a menu and configured with fields and dropdowns. A webhook step exists for sending data to other systems, but most firms never need it for day-to-day workflows.
Can two people edit the same workflow at once?
Avoid it. Agree one owner per workflow and have others comment rather than edit. Simultaneous changes are the quickest route to a published version that nobody fully understands.
How do I hand a workflow over when the builder leaves?
Ask for a short written note per workflow: trigger, outcome, exits and known exceptions. With clear step names on the canvas, that note is usually half a page. The article on business process workflow suggests how to document ownership across a whole set.
Is the canvas the same for AI-assisted steps?
Yes. AI steps sit on the canvas like any other action, so you can see exactly where a draft reply is generated and where a person reviews it before anything is sent.