Building Your First Workflow

Workflows are what make FoxCLM automate itself. Every status change on a session, invoice, client, or payroll can trigger transitions, fire actions (emails, webhooks, notifications), and evaluate conditions. This tutorial walks through the workflow editor and shows how to add your first custom status.

Takes about 6 minutes.

1. Open the Workflow page

Click Workflow in the sidebar (under AI TOOLS, or at Settings -> Workflows & Statuses).

The page has four buttons at the top right that toggle which entity type you're editing:

• Classes - status lifecycle for sessions (e.g. Scheduled, Occurred, Cancelled)
• Invoices - billing lifecycle (Draft, Sent, Pending Payment, Paid, Overdue, Cancelled)
• Payroll - pay period lifecycle (Draft, Approved, Rejected, Paid)
• Clients - CRM lifecycle (Lead, Active, Inactive, Churned)

The visual flowchart shows:

• Status nodes - rounded rectangles, one per status, coloured by the status colour
• Transition arrows - connecting one status to another, with a label (e.g. "Send", "Mark Paid")
• Blue handles - drag from one node's handle to another to create a new transition
• Hint text - "Drag nodes to reposition. Drag from the blue handle to connect. Right-click for options."

Below the flowchart:

• Invoice Statuses (or whichever type you're viewing) - the list of statuses with counts of entities currently in each status
• + Add Status - button to add a new status
• Transitions - tabular list of every transition

2. The transitions table

Scroll down to see every transition in a table view:

Each row is one transition with:

• From - starting status (coloured dot)
• To - ending status (coloured dot)
• Label - the button text clients and users see (e.g. "Send", "Mark Paid", "Auto Paid (Full Payment)")
• Condition - optional rule that must be true for the transition to fire
• Actions - number of actions attached (emails, webhooks, etc.)
• Delete - remove the transition

Look at the seeded Invoice workflow:

• Draft -> Sent (label: "Send") - manual click
• Sent -> Pending Payment (label: "Mark Pending Payment") - manual
• Pending Payment -> Paid (label: "Mark Paid") - manual
• Pending Payment -> Paid (label: "Auto Paid (Full Payment)", condition: payment_amount >= ...) - auto-advance
• Sent -> Overdue (label: "Auto Overdue (High Value)", condition: total > greater than "50...") - auto-advance

Both manual and auto transitions live side by side. The sort order determines priority when multiple could fire at once.

3. Add a new status

Scroll back up and click + Add Status (either below the flowchart or in the Statuses section):

Fields:

• Name (required) - the label users see (e.g. "Approved", "Submitted for Review", "On Hold")
• Color - the colour for the status badge throughout the app; pick from the swatch or enter a hex code

Common examples:

Name	Good colour	Use for
Submitted for Approval	Orange #f39c12	Invoices waiting on an admin
Approved	Green #27ae60	Approved but not yet sent
On Hold	Grey #95a5a6	Paused pending more info
Disputed	Red #e74c3c	Client contested the charge

Click Apply to add the status. It appears as a new node on the flowchart (positioned at the top-left of the canvas - drag it where you want it).

4. Add a transition

Hover over any status node. A blue handle appears on the right edge. Drag from the handle to another status - FoxCLM draws an arrow and opens the transition editor.

Fill in:

• Label - what users see on the button (e.g. "Submit for Approval")
• Condition (optional) - a rule like "only if amount > 500"
• Actions (optional) - what should fire when the transition runs

For a simple manual transition (Draft -> Submitted for Approval), no condition or actions are needed - just the label. Click Save.

5. Add a condition

Conditions are how auto-advance works. A transition with a condition fires automatically when the condition becomes true.

Click an existing transition's label (e.g. "Auto Paid (Full Payment)") to open the editor. In the Condition section, you can build a rule with:

Fields - any column on the entity (e.g. amount, due_date, status_text, created_at, or any custom field)

Operators:

Op	Meaning
eq	Equal
neq	Not equal
gt / gte	Greater than / or equal
lt / lte	Less than / or equal
is_null / is_not_null	Missing / present
contains	Substring (case-insensitive)

Values - either a literal (500, "paid") or another column (due_date)

Special values - $NOW (current datetime), $TODAY (current date at midnight)

Compound conditions - combine multiple rules with and / or

Example: Auto-send overdue email

When an invoice has been Sent for more than 7 days and has no payment, auto-move to Overdue.

Transition: Sent -> Overdue

Condition:

logic: and
rules:
  - field: due_date
    op: lt
    value: $NOW
  - field: paid_at
    op: is_null

Action: send_overdue_notice

The cron evaluates this every few minutes. The moment the due date passes on an unpaid invoice, the transition fires and the overdue email goes out.

6. Add an action

Actions are what happen when a transition fires. Open any transition's editor and click + Add Action.

FoxCLM has 25 action types. Pick one from the dropdown - common ones:

• send_invoice_email - email the invoice to linked clients
• send_paid_confirmation - payment receipt
• send_overdue_notice - reminder email
• send_custom_email - any custom subject and body (great for brand-specific messaging)
• call_webhook - fire a saved webhook (Slack, Zapier, custom API)
• call_api - raw HTTP call with templated body
• create_notification - in-app bell notification
• share_invoice / unshare_invoice - manage the public link

Each action has its own config. For example, send_reminder_email asks for hours_before; send_custom_email asks for subject and body HTML.

See Workflow Actions for the full list.

7. Test your workflow

Click Test Workflow at the top of the page. FoxCLM runs a dry-run on every transition:

• All transitions are enumerated
• Mock entities are generated that satisfy each condition
• Failed or invalid conditions are flagged
• End-to-end paths (Start -> End) are listed

Use this before relying on complex conditions to catch typos and bad logic.

8. Reset to default

If you've made a mess, click Reset to Default at the top. FoxCLM wipes your custom statuses and transitions for the current entity type and rebuilds the default set.

This is destructive - any entities currently in a custom status will lose that status. Only do this during setup, not on a live workflow.

Common workflows to build

Simple invoice flow

Draft -> Sent (manual, action: send_invoice_email)
Sent -> Paid (manual)
Sent -> Overdue (auto, condition: due_date < $NOW, action: send_overdue_notice)
Overdue -> Paid (manual, action: send_paid_confirmation)

Approval flow

Draft -> Submitted (manual)
Submitted -> Approved (manual, action: send_invoice_email)
Submitted -> Draft (manual, rejection)
Approved -> Paid (manual, action: send_paid_confirmation)

Client re-engagement

Active -> Inactive (auto, condition: last_session_at < 60 days ago)
Inactive -> Churned (auto, condition: last_session_at < 180 days ago, action: send_reengagement_email)

What's next

• Workflow Actions - full reference of all 25 action types
• Webhooks & API - fire external integrations
• Automation Settings - global auto-advance toggles