Prepare your workflow

It's a good idea to prepare before you start building your first workflow. Normally, you need to do the following:

1. Basic terminology: you need to understand how Next Matter understands workflows, and what workflow components are.

• About workflows and instances
• About steps and step types

2. Stakeholders: you need to know who your stakeholders are for the workflow. For example, if you are building an employee onboarding process, then your HR team will help you get an outline of the data they need to collect about the new joiner.
3. Possible integrations: you might need to feed the data you gather in the course of a process into an external tool. That will, most likely, require access rights and API credentials. Having them at hand before you start building is a good idea.

• About integrations
• Work with templates

4. Process outline: building a workflow might be an iterative task with a lot of people chipping in. Make sure to get buy-in from your stakeholders to give you ideas and review the outcome.
5. Get your toolbox ready: some workflows might require you to create a few lines in JSON or run an API request. It's advisable to get hold of a JSON validator such as JSON formatter, and a tool to run API calls, such as Postman or Insomnia.
6. Request feedback: building a workflow might be a bit more complex than assembling your IKEA bed, so you might not get it perfect the first time around. Request feedback, take learning notes and iterate - you'll be a pro in no time.

Next Matter starting kit

If you're unsure where to begin, we've got your back. Here are some links to start with:

1. For basic terminology, see About workflows and instances and About steps and step types
2. If you have a workflow ready and need to migrate it from an external tool, see Batch import
3. If you want to dive in and try building a simple workflow, see Build your first workflow
4. If you want to learn how to involve your team in building a workflow, see Builder notes