Cord Workflows
“When this happens, do this” rules that take the next step for you after every sale, without writing code.
What a workflow is
A workflow is a rule that watches your Cord account. When a specific event happens (a client opens a quote, a deposit arrives, an invoice becomes overdue, a dispute is opened), the workflow runs the steps you defined, in order: create a task, email your team, write to your client with your branding or on WhatsApp, close a quote that expired, approve an internal request, void an invoice, send the data to the URL you use in another tool, post to Slack or Teams, or add a note in HubSpot.
The point is that follow-up does not depend on someone remembering. If your team checks by hand which quotes nobody opened, who paid the deposit or which invoices are overdue, a workflow does it for you and leaves the task ready for the right person.
Where to find it
Open Workflows in the app sidebar. The list shows each workflow as a card with its name, the event that starts it, its status (Draft, Active or Paused), how many times it ran in the last 30 days and how many of those runs failed. At the top you see how many active workflows you have against your plan limit, and the How your automations are doing panel with the last 30 days.
Cord Workflows is for admins. You need the Settings permission to view, create, edit or publish workflows. People without it see “Cord Workflows is for admins” and can ask the account owner for access.
The pieces of a workflow
Each workflow reads top to bottom in the editor, in two blocks: When this happens (the trigger) and Do this (the steps).
| Piece | What it does | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | What starts the workflow: one of Cord’s 49 events, or a fixed schedule (“every Monday at 9”). Each workflow has exactly one. | Triggers |
| Condition | Splits the flow into two branches, If the condition is met and If the condition isn’t met, based on the event data. Up to 10 rules per condition, joined with “And” and “Or”. | Conditions |
| Multiple branches | Follows the first of up to 5 branches whose conditions are met, or Otherwise. | Conditions |
| Wait | Pauses the flow for some days, some hours or until a time of day (in business days or counting from a date on the document) and then continues. | Waits |
| Wait until… | Waits for something to happen (the client opens, approves or pays) with a time limit of 1 to 30 days, then continues through If it happens or If the time runs out. | Waits |
| Lookup | Brings a number from your account to use in the following steps: overdue receivables, open pipeline, what was collected, what is about to be due or the client’s balance. It only reads; it never changes anything. | Lookups |
| For each | Goes through a list of charges (each overdue charge, the client’s, or what is due soon) and runs its steps once for each one, on its document. | For each |
| Ask for approval | Waits for a person on the team to approve or reject; they get an email and decide in Cord. Continues through If approved or If rejected or time runs out. | Ask for approval |
| Action | Something Cord does for you, among 16 actions: create a task, email the team or one person, email the client, remind them to pay, pause their reminders, send the client a WhatsApp, expire or invoice a quote, record a payment promise, approve an internal request, void an invoice, send the data to a URL, post to Slack, post to Teams or add a note in HubSpot. | Actions |
| Event data | Values like {{cliente}}, {{folio}} or {{total}} that you put in your texts and that are filled in when the workflow runs, plus your business data ({{negocio}}, {{hoy}}). |
Event data |
How a workflow runs inside
- The event happens. Someone sends a quote, the client pays, a scheduled workflow’s time comes. Each event is recorded only once.
- Cord creates a run for every active workflow whose trigger matches, with a copy of the version published at that moment. Ten quotes sent are ten independent runs.
- The steps run in order. Conditions pick a branch, lookups keep their result for the following steps, and actions run with the event data already written into your texts.
- A wait saves the run and resumes it when it ends. A plain wait continues during the day it ends; a wait until… continues as soon as what it waits for happens to the workflow’s document, or when the time runs out.
- If an action fails, Cord retries it on a schedule that goes from seconds to hours, never repeating an effect that already happened. If it can’t, the run is Failed and you can retry it by hand from its history.
Statuses, retries and error messages are covered in Runs and errors.
A complete example
“Don’t let a quote go cold” is one of the ready-made ideas in Cord. It reads like this:
- When this happens: a quote is sent.
- Wait until the client opens or approves it, with a 2-day limit.
- If it happens: create the task “Call
{{cliente}}while{{folio}}is warm”. - If the time runs out: email the client asking if they have questions, and wait 5 more days for a decision.
- If there is still no decision: look up the client’s balance and alert you with what they already owe you.
Every quote you send starts its own run of this workflow, and each one checks its own quote: the one the client opened within the hour goes one way, the one nobody touched goes the other.
How many workflows you can have
| Plan | Active workflows | Drafts and paused | Runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 | No limit | No limit |
| Starter | 5 | No limit | No limit |
| Pro | No limit | No limit | No limit |
| Scale | No limit | No limit | No limit |
| Developer | No limit | No limit | No limit |
Only Active workflows take up a slot. Some actions depend on more than the workflows plan:
- Email the client uses your plan’s sending quota (5 a month on Free, no limit on the other plans).
- Approve the internal request needs internal approvals, which come with the Scale plan or higher.
- Slack, Teams, WhatsApp and HubSpot need that app connected in Settings › Integrations.
Maximum workflow size, hourly caps per action and what happens when you downgrade: Limits.
Draft, published version and runs
- Draft: what you edit. You can change it as many times as you want without affecting anything.
- Published version: what runs. It only changes when you press Publish or Publish changes, and every publish is a new version.
- Run: every time the event happens, Cord creates a run with a copy of the version published at that moment. If you publish changes later, runs already in progress finish with the version they started with.
Before publishing you can press Test: it runs the draft against the latest real event for its trigger and shows what each step would have done, without sending anything. All of this is covered in Publish, pause and delete and Runs and errors.
Ideas to get started
Cord comes with nine ready-made workflows and orders them using what you answered when you created your account: your industry, what you will use Cord for and your role. Each card says why we suggest it, and each idea alerts the team through the channel you have connected. They are created as drafts so you can review them before publishing:
| Idea | Starts when | What for |
|---|---|---|
| Don’t let a quote go cold | A quote is sent | So no quote gets lost in silence. |
| Payment reminder 3 days before the due date | An invoice is about to be due | Collect before the date. |
| Collections that step up | An invoice has been past due for days | Chase the money in stages, with multiple branches. |
| The invoice goes out when you get paid | A quote is paid in full | So no paid sale is left without an invoice. |
| Your Monday: collected, overdue and who to call | On a fixed schedule | Start the week with the number and the day’s calls. |
| Push an invoice to get paid | You run it from an invoice | Press for a payment when you decide to. |
| Last call and quote close-out | A quote is about to expire | Close the loop instead of leaving quotes open forever. |
| Start the work when the deposit arrives | A partial payment arrives | So work starts as soon as the money comes in. |
| Large quotes go to the owner for approval | A quote requests internal approval | Small ones are approved on their own; large ones go through the owner. |
Each idea, step by step, and which business it suits: Ready-made ideas.
What a workflow never does
A workflow does not charge, does not record payments and does not approve or reject a quote on behalf of your client. Those decisions still belong to a person or to the client.
What it does do to your documents is narrow and explicit: email or WhatsApp the document’s client (never an address or number typed into the step) and remind them to pay, pause their reminders, record a payment promise, expire a quote that is past its validity, invoice an approved or paid quote (one invoice per quote and, in Mexico, stamped with the SAT), approve an internal approval request, and void an invoice that has no payments yet. Each of those actions is only offered when the trigger brings the document or client it acts on; otherwise the workflow cannot be published. And every one of them runs with the permissions of the person who published the workflow: if that person could not approve a request by hand, their workflow cannot either.
It cannot create infinite loops either: a workflow is never triggered by events it caused itself, and a chain of workflows triggering each other is cut after three levels. Details in Limits.
Workflows or integrations
A workflow runs inside Cord and needs nothing connected to create tasks, email your team or write to the client. When the next step lives in another tool:
- To post to Slack or Teams, send a WhatsApp or add a note in HubSpot, connect the app and use its action in the workflow.
- To take the event to any other app, use the Send the data to a URL action with the address Zapier, Make or n8n gives you, or connect those apps directly with their Cord triggers. See Integrations.
Cord Workflows guides
- Create your first workflow: the editor, step by step.
- Ready-made ideas: the 9 ideas that come with Cord, how they are ordered for your business and how to adapt them.
- Triggers: the 49 events, the scheduled trigger and the data each one brings.
- Conditions: branches, comparisons, current status and changes.
- Waits: waits by days and waits until something happens.
- Lookups: bring a number in before deciding.
- For each: go through a list of charges, with steps for each one.
- Ask for approval: have a person decide before continuing.
- Actions: tasks, emails to the team and the client, WhatsApp to the client, document actions, POST to a URL, Slack, Teams and HubSpot.
- Event data: variables in your texts.
- Publish, pause and delete: versions, testing without publishing and lifecycle.
- Runs and errors: how to read the history, retries and failures.
- Limits: plans, size and hourly caps.