Building Custom Workflows
What is a custom workflow?
A custom workflow is a reusable AI workflow you define yourself. You describe the job you want done in plain language, SoterAI turns it into an ordered set of steps, and once published it appears alongside your other workflows so anyone in your workspace can run it with a single click.
Examples of what you could build:
- Translate a document from Polish to English following your company style guide
- Summarise a site inspection report into a 5-point executive briefing
- Generate a toolbox talk from a list of hazards identified on-site
- Draft a corrective action plan from an incident description
- Take actions in other tools — workflows can send emails, post to Slack, or create tickets in another system, if the connection type allows it
- Pull live data from systems outside SoterAI — workflows can connect to other apps in your workspace and read live data from them
Examples of what custom workflows aren't designed for:
- Monitor your connected apps in the background — for example, a workflow can't scan your Gmail for high-priority messages or pull decisions and attendees out of a Google Drive meeting note on its own
- Chain multiple workflows together or branch on conditional logic — each workflow is a single self-contained task
Who can create custom workflows?
Custom workflows can be created by Owners, Managers, and Users. Read-Only and Actions Access users cannot create, edit or run any workflow that has been shared with the workspace.
How the builder works
The Custom Workflow Builder is a split screen. The chat on the left is where you do all the work: you describe the job, answer questions, and ask for changes. The Workflow Map on the right is a read-only picture of what SoterAI has built for you — you can look at it and point at it, but you cannot type into it.
The chat is the only place you make changes. Clicking a field or a step in the map does not change anything on its own — it tells SoterAI which part of the workflow your next message is about. Nothing is altered until you send a request.
For a full tour of the map — the step cards, the resources each step uses, and how to scope an edit — see Understanding the Workflow Map.
Creating a custom workflow
Step 1 — Open the workflow builder
Go to the Workflows page in the sidebar and click Create Now on the Create a Workflow card. The builder opens with the chat on the left and the Workflow Map on the right.
Step 2 — Describe the job in the chat
SoterAI sets up your workflow when the builder opens — you will see it check the available record types, read the Custom Workflows schema, create a draft, and fetch your workspace locations. It then invites you to begin, with a few worked examples such as:
"Every morning, search for the latest OSHA news and summarise the top 3 stories."
"When I upload a photo, analyse it for workplace hazards and generate a report."
"Review uploaded incident reports, extract key details, and create a summary table."
Describe what you want in your own words — what the job is, what a good result looks like, and anything the workflow must always do. You do not need to think in steps, prompts or connectors; that is SoterAI's job.
You can attach evidence at this point too — documents, PDFs, images and any other file type the chat already supports. Upload, microphone and connector controls all work as they do elsewhere in chat.
Tip: The more specific your description, the better the result. Mention your industry, the format you want the output in, and any constraints to follow.
Step 3 — Let SoterAI build the workflow
Once you have described the job, SoterAI drafts the instructions and populates the Workflow Map — the title, description, instructions, any attachments, a schedule if you asked for one, and the ordered steps. If it needs anything essential to produce a credible workflow, it asks in the chat first; otherwise it builds straight away and shows you the result.
You do not have to get everything right in one message. Once the map is built you can refine any part of it by selecting that field or step and describing the change — see Step 4.
Step 4 — Review and refine the Workflow Map
When the build finishes, the right-hand panel shows your workflow:
| Row | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Title | The workflow name, as it will appear on the tile |
| Description | A short summary of what the workflow is for |
| Instructions | The fuller brief the workflow follows when it runs |
| Attachments | Every file and link the workflow uses, or a note that there are none yet |
| Schedule | When the workflow runs automatically, if you have set a schedule |
| Steps | The ordered steps, each as a numbered card |
Read through it and check it matches how the work should actually happen. If something is wrong, click that field or step and describe the change in the chat. For a full tour of the map, see Understanding the Workflow Map.
Step 5 — Test it, then publish
Once the map has a title, instructions and at least one valid step, Test and Save workflow appear in an action bar pinned to the bottom of the map.
Test runs the workflow for real against a sample input and reports progress in the chat. When it finishes, SoterAI summarises what happened and may propose improvements — nothing is applied until you say so. You can test as many times as you like, adjusting the workflow in between.
When you are satisfied, Save workflow publishes it and the workflow appears as a tile in the Custom Workflows section of My Workflows.
If you navigate away after building or changing a workflow you have not saved, SoterAI warns you before discarding the session and offers Keep editing or Discard changes. There is no autosave and no saved draft, so the warning is your only safety net.
Finding and running a custom workflow
Published custom workflows appear in a dedicated Custom Workflows section on the Workflows page, below your Favourites. Click any workflow tile to open it and start a conversation — SoterAI will automatically load the workflow's prompt as the starting context, so you can get straight to the task.
If your workflow accepts files as inputs, users can upload files when running it. Those files are indexed and fully readable by the AI — SoterAI can extract text, analyse content, and reference specific details from any uploaded file as part of the workflow output.
Scheduling a workflow
As well as running a custom workflow on demand, you can set it to run automatically on a defined schedule — hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or on a custom (advanced) cadence. The scheduling controls appear in the same panel you use to create or edit the workflow, and the schedule you set is shown on the Schedule row of the Workflow Map. Schedules run in your own timezone. Scheduling is available on custom workflows only; pre-built Library workflows must be cloned first.
For step-by-step instructions, see Scheduling Workflows.
Editing and archiving a published workflow
Editing and archiving are available at any time. In the Records Management section, open the Custom Workflows sub-section and click the three-dot menu (⋯) on the right side of the workflow tile.
In the edit view, Title and Description can be updated directly. The workflow's instructions, inputs and outputs cannot be typed into — they are built through the conversation. Use the Open conversation button in the edit view to return to the original chat, or start a new chat from the workflow tile, describe the change, then save.
Export a custom workflow
To export a custom workflow, open the workflow in the Records Management section and select the Export button at the top of the screen.
Workflow visibility and permissions
| Action | Owner | Manager | User | Read-Only | Actions Access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Create custom workflow | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Edit own custom workflow | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Delete own custom workflow | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Run a public custom workflow | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
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