Custom Workflows: Lifecycle Management

SoterAI gives workspace owners and managers full control over the lifecycle of a custom workflow — from editing and sharing it across workspaces, to cloning it for local customization, to archiving workflows that are no longer needed.

At a glance

Permissions

All lifecycle actions — editing, sharing, cloning, and archiving — require the manage_workflows permission, which is held by workspace owners and managers. Most actions apply only within the owning workspace — the workspace where the workflow was originally created — except for cloning, which owners and managers can perform from any workspace where the workflow is visible.

Regular workspace members see Use Now and the pin control on workflow tiles, but not the ⋮ lifecycle menu. They can also browse workflows shared with the workspace in the Library.

Workspaces that receive a workflow through sharing can add it and clone it to create their own editable copy. The original workflow can only be edited from its owning workspace.

Two further actions belong to recipients and appear only when the owner has archived a workflow they had added. Keep makes a copy and needs the same permission as Clone, so owners and managers only. Retire just clears the card and needs the same permission as Remove, so anyone who can add and remove workflows for themselves. See What recipients see when you archive.

Editing and republishing

Owners and managers of the owning workspace can update a workflow's instructions and metadata at any time. Clicking Edit Workflow in the ⋮ menu opens a record details modal prepopulated with the current values. If the workflow was originally created from a chat conversation, an Open conversation button links back to that originating thread.

Title and description can be changed directly. What the workflow actually does — its instructions, files and steps — is changed by describing the change in the conversation, not by typing into a field. In the builder this is shown as the Workflow Map: a read-only picture of the workflow that you point at to scope your next request. See Understanding the Workflow Map in SoterAI.

Before publishing, you can run a trial of the workflow in the builder to check the output is right, and repeat it as often as you like — no proposed improvement is applied until you confirm it.

Saving republishes the workflow immediately. Updates apply to all workspaces where the workflow is currently shared.

See Editing a custom workflow in SoterAI for step-by-step instructions.

Scheduling

A published custom workflow can be set to run automatically on a schedule — hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or on a custom cadence — rather than being triggered manually each time. Use Set Schedule in the ⋮ menu on the workflow tile, or configure it from the Draft Record panel when creating or editing the workflow. A schedule can be paused at any time using the Schedule Enabled toggle without losing the configuration. Scheduling applies to custom workflows only.

The time you set is the time the workflow runs where you are — set a report for 6 am and it arrives at 6 am your time, with no offset to work out. SoterAI confirms the schedule back to you in the chat with the timezone named, and keeps its local time across daylight saving changes. If you need a workflow to run on a different clock, name the timezone when you set it up.

See Scheduling Workflows for step-by-step instructions.

Sharing

A custom workflow you create is visible to you only. It is not published to your workspace automatically — until you share it, nobody else can see it, including colleagues in the workspace where you built it.

To make it available, open the ⋮ menu on the workflow tile and choose Share. The dialog lets you choose who can use the workflow:

• Specific workspaces — tick any workspace in your organization. Your own workspace is one of the options, badged This workspace. Tick it to let your colleagues in the workspace where you built the workflow discover it.
• Entire organization — a single toggle that makes the workflow available in every workspace's Library. Organization-wide sharing is dynamic: workspaces created after the share automatically discover the workflow.

Direct user-to-user sharing is not supported — you share with workspaces, not individuals. When a workflow is shared with a workspace, its owners and managers receive an in-app notification.

What recipients see

Sharing makes a workflow discoverable, not automatic. In each workspace you share with, the workflow appears in the Library's Shared with you sub-tab with an Add button. It does not appear on anyone's My Workflows tab until they add it themselves.

Each person then decides individually:

Because the choice is per person, a workflow shared with a whole workspace may sit on some colleagues' My Workflows tabs and not others.

Recipient workspaces can add and clone the workflow but cannot edit the original.

Revoking a share

Untick a workspace in the Share dialog and the workflow is removed for everyone in that workspace at once — it leaves Shared with you, and it also leaves the My Workflows tab of every person there who had added it. There is no per-person residue to clean up.

Revoking is not the same as archiving. Revoking removes the workflow outright for that workspace; archiving leaves a visible archived card for anyone who had added it, with the option to keep a copy.

Enterprise workflows

Enterprise workflows the Soter team sets up for your company follow exactly the same path: they arrive in Shared with you, and each person adds the ones they want. They are not pushed onto anyone's My Workflows tab.

If your workspace already had access to enterprise workflows before this release, that access was carried over — nobody lost a workflow they already had.

See Sharing a custom workflow in SoterAI for step-by-step instructions.

Cloning

Owners and managers can clone any workflow visible in their workspace to create an independent copy. The clone has the original title with " (Copy)" appended. Changes to a clone do not affect the original, and updates to the original do not overwrite a clone.

A copy is a snapshot, not a live link. While a shared workflow is only added to your tab, you are running the owner's version and you pick up every refinement they make. The moment you clone it, that connection ends: your copy will not receive later improvements, and it is yours to maintain. Clone when you need to change something locally; stay on the shared original when you want it to keep improving.

See Cloning a workflow in SoterAI for step-by-step instructions.

Archiving and restoring

Archiving takes a workflow out of circulation. It disappears from the Library and from Shared with you in every workspace, and nobody can newly add it. Archived workflows stay visible to owners and managers of the owning workspace in the Library's Archived tab, where they can be restored. Restoring reinstates the workflow and automatically restores all previous sharing — recipient workspaces regain access without any manual re-sharing.

SoterAI asks you to confirm before archiving. The confirmation notes that the workflow will be hidden from the Library and that its previous sharing comes back if you restore it later.

What recipients see when you archive

People in other workspaces who had already added the workflow do not lose it without warning. The card stays on their My Workflows tab, faded and badged Original archived, telling them the owner archived this workflow and offering to keep a copy or retire it.

The faded card cannot be run. There is no Use Now, no Add or Remove control, no schedule and no ⋮ menu — only two buttons:

Someone with neither permission sees the faded card and its message but no buttons.

Choosing Keep is the same trade-off as any clone: you keep the workflow, but your copy is frozen at the version you kept and will not track any later work by its original owner — who has, after all, just archived it.

If the owner restores the original instead, the card returns to its normal added state on its own. Nobody has to re-share it and nobody has to add it again.

What this means if you are the owner

Archiving is still a single action with no extra prompt about recipients, and nothing about the owner-side flow has changed. What has changed is the outcome in other workspaces: archiving no longer removes a shared workflow outright for people who had already added it. Each of them keeps a visible archived card and can take their own copy of it. If you need a workflow to be genuinely out of everyone's hands, archiving on its own does not achieve that.

See Archiving and restoring workflows in SoterAI for step-by-step instructions.

The Workflows Library

The Library is a tab on the Workflows page. Alongside the tag sub-tabs it carries two sub-tabs that relate to the workflow lifecycle:

• Shared with you — workflows shared with your workspace, with sharer attribution and an Add button on each card. Adding one puts it on your My Workflows tab; it is never added for you. This sub-tab is always present, and says so when nothing has been shared with your workspace.
• Archived — archived custom workflows owned by your workspace, with a Restore option. Visible to owners and managers only.

Archived workflows owned by another workspace never appear here, and they are not listed in Shared with you either. The only place you see one is as a faded card on My Workflows, if you had added it before it was archived.

See Discovering shared and archived workflows in SoterAI for more detail. For the Library tab itself, see Workflows Library in SoterAI.

Things to know

• The ⋮ menu (Edit Workflow, Set Schedule, Share, Clone, Archive) is only visible on workflows owned by your workspace, and only to owners and managers. Recipients of a share see a Clone button instead.
• A new custom workflow is private to its creator. Nothing is published to the workspace on save — sharing is a deliberate, separate step.
• Sharing offers a workflow; each person accepts it. A shared workflow waits in Shared with you until someone clicks Add. Revoking the share removes it for everyone in that workspace, wherever they had added it.
• Adding keeps you in sync; copying does not. An added shared workflow always runs the owner's current version. A clone, however it was made, stops receiving their changes.
• Archiving does not silently remove a workflow from other workspaces. Anyone who had added it sees a faded Original archived card and chooses Keep (take a copy) or Retire (clear it). Nobody can newly add an archived workflow.
• Restoring an archived workflow restores all previous sharing automatically, and returns the faded card to its normal added state.
• Organization-wide sharing is dynamic: workspaces created after the share automatically discover the workflow in the Library.
• Scheduling is available on custom workflows only. Schedules run in your own timezone and keep their local time across daylight saving changes; a schedule can be saved but left inactive using the Schedule Enabled toggle.
• Share notifications are in-app only in this release. Email notifications are not sent.
• Permanent deletion of custom workflows is not supported.

In this guide

Select a topic below for a detailed walkthrough: