Manage workflows

Publishing makes a workflow available to new triggers. Manage later changes through draft edits and new published versions, while existing runs continue on the version they started. Use this reference to understand publishing, pausing, duplication and deletion.

Publish it to make it live

The Publish button appears at the top of the editor whenever you have changes that have not been published. maxclicks checks the whole workflow first, then asks you to confirm: publishing applies your changes to all new triggers.

If anything is wrong you get Cannot Publish, and the problems are listed on the canvas and inside the offending steps. The usual ones:

Message	What it means
A workflow must have at least one trigger step.	Nothing would ever set it off.
This step must have at least one incoming link.	The step is stranded. Connect it, or delete it.
The condition is not compiled yet.	You described the logic but never compiled it. Compile it, or on an If/Else, Switch or Delay accept that maxinja will work it out on every run.
This is a temporary step type, resolve it before publishing the workflow.	A None step is still holding a place. Give it a type.
Currently, cycles are not supported.	Two steps loop back on each other. Break the loop.

Warnings do not block a publish. The scheduled timestamp is set in the past and Without a data key, next steps will have no access to the found records are worth reading before you go ahead, not after.

You also need something to publish. If nothing has changed since last time, the publish is refused.

Publish from the editor, or have maxinja perform the authorized workflow action after your review. The public workflows API does not expose publication.

Keep editing while it runs

You edit a workflow in place, and steps can sit half finished while you work. None of it touches the live version. Your edits go live only when you publish again, and until then the workflow carries a Draft badge alongside its live status.

Publishing takes a frozen copy of the steps, connections and step-owned email templates, called a version. Later draft edits do not alter that copy. Publishing also replaces the live trigger configuration and resumes a paused workflow.

New triggers always start on the newest published version.
Runs already going finish on the version they started with, however many times you publish in the meantime.
Every step is checked once more just before it executes, so a step that has become invalid fails that run rather than doing something unintended.

This is why the canvas in the Runs tab can look different from the one you are editing: it shows the workflow as it was when that run began.

Pause it without losing anything

Pausing prevents new runs and parks existing runs before they execute more steps. It does not undo completed writes or recall a request or email already in flight. Use it to contain a problem while you inspect the affected runs.

A Delay keeps its saved deadline while paused. Resuming does not start the wait again; a deadline that has passed can continue once execution resumes. There is no per-run cancel, skip or rewind control.

Existing runs still belong to their original published version. If that version contains a faulty step, publishing a correction does not repair those runs: publication resumes the workflow, including work waiting on older versions. Review that consequence before publishing a fix.

In the editor, a published workflow shows a Live button at the top. Click it, confirm, and it turns into Paused. Click that to resume. You can do the same from the ⋯ menu on the workflows list, with Pause and Resume.

Use the Runs tab to inspect the version and current step before resuming. A pause is an execution hold, not a new version or a replay of every event that occurred during the hold.

Read the status badges

The Status column on the workflows list carries up to two badges at once.

Badge	Meaning
Published	Live. New triggers start runs.
Paused	Published, with new runs prevented and existing execution parked.
Draft	Either never published, or published with unpublished edits sitting on top.

The list also shows the total number of runs each workflow has had, and you can sort by status or by runs.

Copy or delete one

Duplicate, in the ⋯ menu, gives you an unpublished copy to work on. Use it before trying a risky change to something that is live.

Delete cannot be undone. It stops every automated process the workflow drives, immediately, and permanently removes its configuration and all of its analytics data. Pause it instead if there is any chance you will want it back.

Manage it from your own code

The API can list your workflows, read one, and pause or resume it. It cannot create, edit, publish or delete them, and it never returns the steps, the links between them, or the versions. See the workflows API reference.

To start a run from your own code, see triggering a workflow.

Create a workflow: build the graph.
Workflow runs: inspect individual runs.
Workflow billing: how runs consume credits.