Building a flow

You build a flow on a canvas, in the flow's Build tab. The canvas starts with the trigger that decides who enters, and you grow it one step at a time: a message, a wait, a split that sends each contact down a different branch, an update to the contact. The panel arranges the steps for you, so the work is deciding what happens and where in the path, never drawing boxes or arrows.

Everything you change on the canvas is a draft. It only exists in your browser until you save it, and saving still sends nothing: a flow reaches contacts only when a person publishes it (see Testing, publishing and versions). If the flow is already published, the contacts inside it keep following the version they entered with while you edit the draft.

Create a flow

1. 1

   Open Flows

   In the dashboard side menu, go to Marketing › Flows and select New flow.

2. 2

   Choose how to start

   The panel asks How do you want to start?

   • Blank flow — an empty canvas that you name and build yourself.
   • From a template — a ready-made flow for an event your project already receives. When some of them already work with the events your project receives, the option shows how many, for example 2 for you. Using a template creates the flow and a draft, and nothing more: nothing is published or switched on. The gallery and what each template sets up are explained in Flow templates.

   If your project has no templates available, New flow skips this question and goes straight to naming the flow.

3. 3

   Name the flow and choose how contacts enter

   In Name your flow, type a name — it is required. Below it, How contacts enter comes with Event selected: the flow starts each time a contact does something, such as starting a checkout or placing an order. The other option, Schedule, is shown as Coming soon and can't be selected yet (see The trigger: who enters and when).

   Select Create flow. The panel confirms with Flow created.

   The name is for you and your team, and it is also sent as utm-campaign in the links of the flow's messages, so pick one you'll recognise in your analytics tool. You can change it later from the flow header (Managing flows).

4. 4

   Set the trigger event

   The flow opens in its Build tab with the event trigger already on the canvas and its settings open on the right. Select the event that brings a contact into the flow and, if you need them, its conditions and audience. Everything about the trigger is in The trigger: who enters and when. From here you add steps below it, as described in the next sections.

A new flow has a single draft, marked Draft next to its name. If a flow's canvas is ever empty, it shows Start by choosing how contacts will enter the flow and lets you pick the trigger from there. A flow whose name has been cleared appears as Untitled flow.

The canvas

The canvas is a tree that grows downwards from the trigger. You never place a step by dragging it: the panel lays the steps out automatically, and you add a step only at a + between two steps (its tooltip reads Add a step here).

• The trigger card sits at the top. It summarises three things in rows: Trigger when (the event, or No event set), Limits (how often the same contact can enter, for example Can re-enter · min 5 minutes apart), and Goal or exit (what counts as success and when a contact leaves early). Clicking a row opens the trigger's settings on the matching tab: Trigger, Limits or Goal & exit. The first two are explained in The trigger: who enters and when; the third in Goals and exits. The trigger can't be moved, copied or deleted.
• Each step card shows the step's icon, its name and a one-line summary of its settings. Clicking it opens its settings in a side panel on the right. The Send message step is the exception: it opens the full-screen Edit message editor, explained in Sending messages.
• The main path ends in Flow completed. A contact who reaches it has finished the flow. You don't need to add an end step yourself.

Splits, branches and where a step lands

A split step (a step from Split the flow, or a wait that has several outcomes) opens one branch per outcome, side by side. Each contact takes exactly one branch. When a branch runs out of steps, the contact continues below the split, where the branches rejoin — you never draw that join, it is always there. A branch with no steps at all is valid: contacts who take it go straight to what follows the split.

Because of that, where you click + decides who gets the step:

• A + below the split (after the branches rejoin) adds the step for everyone, whichever branch they took.
• A + at the top of a branch adds the step only for the contacts who take that branch.
• If you add a split in the middle of a chain, the steps that were below it stay below the new split, for everyone. They are never pulled into one of its branches.

For example, a welcome flow that sends a Spanish message to contacts in Spain and an English one to everyone else needs one tag update to mark both groups as welcomed. Put Update tags once, below the split, rather than once in each branch:

flowchart TD
    T["Trigger: Customer created / updated"] --> S{"Check attribute: Country"}
    S -->|Spain| A["Send SMS in Spanish"]
    S -->|Otherwise| B["Send SMS in English"]
    A --> U["Update tags: add welcome-sent (everyone)"]
    B --> U
    U --> E["Flow completed"]
    class E success

How each split decides which branch a contact takes is explained in Branches.

Moving around the canvas

The bar at the bottom of the canvas has Zoom out, Zoom in, a level menu with 50 %, 100 % and 150 %, Fit to view to see the whole flow at once, and Show minimap for a small overview in the corner. You can also zoom and pan with the mouse wheel or the trackpad. Esc closes whichever panel or editor is open.

Add a step

Click a + and the step palette opens. Type in Search steps… to filter by name or description (with no result it shows No step matches.), or browse the groups. When you choose a step, it is inserted at that + and its settings open straight away.

Group	Step	What it does (as the palette describes it)	Explained in
Send	Send SMS	A text message. Every phone can receive one.	Sending messages
	Send RCS	A branded message, with an SMS fallback if it cannot be delivered.	Sending messages
Wait	Fixed delay	Wait a fixed amount of time.	Waits
	Timezone delay	Wait for an allowed hour in their own timezone.	Waits
	Smart delay	Wait for the best moment to reach them.	Waits
	Wait for delivery	Split on whether the last message arrived.	Waits
	Wait for activity	Wait for a click or a reply, with a time limit.	Waits
Split the flow	Check tag	Route by the tags the contact carries.	Branches
	Check list	Route by the lists they belong to.	Branches
	Check segment	Route by which segment they are in.	Branches
	Check attribute	Route by any field of the contact.	Branches
	Check consent	Route by the channel's consent policy.	Branches
	Check reachability	Route by whether a channel can reach them.	Branches
	Check event	Route by whether the contact did an event.	Branches
	Check entry event	Route by the event that started the flow.	Branches
	A/B split	Split by percentage to compare branches.	Branches
Update the contact	Update tags	Add or remove tags on the contact.	Updating the contact
	Update lists	Add them to lists, or take them out.	Updating the contact
	Manage subscription	Change their subscription on a channel.	Updating the contact
Goal	Goal reached	Record that the contact met the flow's goal, and carry on.	Goals and exits
End the flow	Exit flow	End the flow here for this contact.	Goals and exits

A few rules about what the palette offers:

• Send RCS appears only when your project can send RCS; otherwise the Send group has Send SMS alone. To start sending RCS, see What is RCS.
• The channel of a send is fixed when you add it. On the canvas both appear as Send message; to switch a message from SMS to RCS or back, delete the step and add the other one.
• Exit flow is offered only inside a branch, never on the main path (which already ends in Flow completed), and nothing can follow it in that branch.
• When you have copied a step, a Clipboard group with Paste appears at the top of every palette (see the next section).

Move, copy and delete steps

Every step except the trigger has a ⋮ menu on its card while you are editing the draft:

Action	What it does
Move up / Move down	Swaps the step with its neighbour in the same chain. A step never leaves its branch, and a split moves together with all its branches. The option is greyed out at either end of a chain.
Duplicate	Drops a copy right after the original and opens it. A split is copied with all its branches and the steps inside them, but not with what follows it.
Copy	Keeps a copy of the step so you can paste it somewhere else; the panel confirms with Copied. Paste it with (+). Then click any + and choose Paste under Clipboard.
Delete	Removes the step and closes the gap. Deleting a single step asks for no confirmation. Deleting a split removes all its branches and everything inside them, so if those branches hold steps the panel first asks Delete this step? and tells you how many more steps will go; the flow continues where the branches rejoined.

How copy and paste behave:

• The clipboard holds one step and empties once you paste it. A split travels with its branches, and a message with its texts, languages and sender.
• You can paste into another flow of the same project: the copy survives opening a different flow. Opening a flow in another project empties it. It lives in that browser tab and is not your computer's clipboard.
• Goal reached and Exit flow have nothing to configure, so they can't be copied (Goal reached can still be duplicated).

Undo and Redo appear in the toolbar whenever there is something to undo or redo, and reach back over your recent changes on the canvas. Quick edits to the same step, such as typing a text or dragging a slider, count as one change. Inside Edit message, undo only reaches the changes you made since you opened that message.

Rename steps and branches

A step is called by its type until you give it a name. To rename it, open the step and click its title or the pencil next to it: Rename step asks for a Custom name. Leave the field empty to go back to the default name.

Branches are renamed the same way, from the branch's menu inside the split's settings: Rename branch asks for a Branch name. Names are optional; a branch without one is titled from its condition (for example One of: vip) or as Branch 1, Branch 2… The branches of an A/B split are titled by their percentage and can't be renamed.

Save, discard and conflicts

There is no autosave. As soon as you change something, two buttons appear in the toolbar: Save changes stores the draft, and Discard throws away everything since the last save (and clears the undo history). If you try to leave the flow, or switch to another of its versions, with unsaved changes, the panel warns You have unsaved changes. Leave without saving? and confirming discards them.

• Inside Edit message there is Save changes but no Discard: use Back to the flow builder to return to the canvas.
• A draft with errors can be saved. Saving often is safe; the errors stay marked until you fix them, and the draft simply can't be tested or published until then.
• One draft per flow. If the same draft was saved from somewhere else — another tab, or a teammate — after you opened it, saving shows This draft changed somewhere else. Overwrite replaces it with your version; cancelling keeps your changes unsaved on screen. To keep the other version instead, discard your changes and reload the page.

Saving is not publishing. Once everything is saved and the draft has no errors, the toolbar offers Test run and Publish (Publish only while the draft differs from what is live). Until then neither button is there: while there are unsaved changes, Save changes and Discard take their place, and while the draft has errors, the toolbar shows Fix your flow to publish it. Testing and publishing are explained in Testing, publishing and versions. A published version is shown read-only on its own tab; to change it, you work on the draft and publish again.

Fix what blocks publishing

The panel checks the flow while you build it. A step with a problem shows an amber triangle on its card — its tooltip reads Needs attention — and the toolbar shows Fix your flow to publish it with the number of problems. Open it to see the list: problems that affect the whole flow come first, then one row per step, with the step's name and what is missing. Click a step row to open that step.

Most problems appear the moment you make them; the rest show up a moment later, when the panel has checked the whole flow. If you expect a problem that isn't listed yet, save the draft: the check made on saving is the one that decides whether the flow can be published. Some range errors, such as a wait that is too short, are shown in red inside the step's own settings, so open the step to read the exact message.

Two notices in the toolbar look similar but don't block anything:

• N of 50 steps appears when the flow gets close to the step limit. Up to the limit the flow publishes normally; the notice suggests splitting it into smaller flows. The count includes the trigger and each exit event, so it can be higher than the number of cards you add (see Limits and safeguards).
• 1 goal step with no message before it warns that a Goal reached step can be reached without any message being sent first. A goal only counts once the contact has been sent at least one message, so a contact who reaches it that way records nothing. Move it after a message or add one before it (see Goals and exits).

Iris in the flow editor

Iris is available on every plan; on the Free plan its usage is very limited, enough to try it. The floating Ask Iris button opens it right in the editor, working on the flow in front of you. Iris reads the draft as it is on screen — including changes you haven't saved yet and the errors the panel is flagging — so you can ask what the flow does, why a step needs attention or how to build a part of it.

When Iris suggests changes, it first shows them in a confirmation card that lists each change (for example, adding a step after another one, or changing a step's settings). Once you confirm, the changes land on the canvas as a single change, not saved, and the card offers Undo while it is still the last change you made. Iris leaves the draft ready for you: reviewing it, saving it and publishing it stay with you. More about the assistant in Iris, your AI assistant.

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