Building a flow

The builder is where you assemble an automation. You drag blocks onto a canvas, connect them in the order they should run, and configure each one in the settings rail on the right.

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Opening the builder

From Automations → Flows, click New automation (or Create your first automation if the list is empty) to start with a blank canvas. Click any existing flow row to open it for editing. The top bar holds everything you need while building:

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Step 1 — Add a trigger

A new canvas shows “Start building your automation” / “Drag a trigger from the left to begin, then add actions and logic.” Until a trigger is on the canvas, the palette shows only triggers, under the heading Choose a trigger and the line “Pick what starts this flow.” Search for one, then drag it onto the canvas or click it to add it. Once a trigger exists, the palette flips: triggers disappear and every action and logic block becomes available under Add a step / “Drag onto the canvas, or click to add.” Triggers covers each trigger type in detail.

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Step 2 — Add actions from the palette

The palette sorts every block into two buckets: Only the Callivox section is expanded when you arrive. Use Expand all / Collapse all, or the search box (Search steps…), to find things quickly; the sections you leave open are remembered next time. Blocks are colour-coded by what they are: triggers green, actions blue, control blocks amber, utilities violet.

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Step 3 — Connect the steps

Drag from a block’s output handle to the next block’s input handle. Some blocks have more than one output — If / Else has True and False, For Each has Item and Done, and the HTTP Request block has a separate error output — so which handle you drag from decides which path a step sits on. Other canvas controls:

• Arrange (top right) auto-lays the diagram out top to bottom and fits it to the view.
• Select a block or a connector and press Delete or Backspace to remove it. Deleting a block you have already configured asks for confirmation first.
• The minimap and zoom controls help on larger flows.

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Step 4 — Configure each block

Click a block to open the settings rail on the right. With nothing selected it reads “Nothing selected” / “Select a block on the canvas to edit its settings.”, and a block with no options reads “This block has no settings to configure.” Three things appear on most blocks:

• A Connection dropdown on any block that talks to an outside app. It defaults to — default connection —. If you have not authorised that app yet you will see “No connections yet — add one from the Connections button on the Automations page.” — see Connectors and connections.
• Choose… and Custom… on dropdown fields. Custom… reveals a free-text box for values that are not in the list.
• Delete block at the bottom of the rail.

Validation problems show as a red alert at the top of the rail.

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Passing data between steps

Almost every field can be filled from an earlier step instead of typed by hand. Use the Use a previous step picker on the field. It offers a search box (Search steps & fields…) and lists what is available, grouped by the step that produced it, plus a Variables group for your own workflow variables. This is how a flow carries data forward: the email captured by a form trigger becomes the email on a Create Contact action; the order id returned by one step becomes the lookup value for the next.

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Workflow variables

Click Variables in the top bar to open Workflow Variables — your own named slots for holding data across the flow. Empty, it reads “No variables yet. Add one to store and pass data between steps.” Each variable has a Name, a Type (Text, Number, True / False, List or Object) and an optional default value. Names must be unique and use letters, digits and underscores, and cannot start with a digit. Set and read them with the blocks in the Variables section of the palette: Set Variable, Get Variable, Increment Variable, Update Variable and List Operation.

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Reshaping lists

When a step hands back a list that is the wrong shape — too many columns, one row per day when you want one per person, duplicates you do not need — use the blocks in the Data section to map, filter, group, deduplicate and sort it before the next step sees it. See Working with data.

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Repeating steps with For Each

To do the same work once per item in a list — every row read from a sheet, every record returned by a search — use the For Each block from Logic & Flow. The other blocks in Logic & Flow are If / Else (branch on a condition), Switch (route down one of several paths), Loop (repeat while a condition holds) and End (stop the automation).

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Step 5 — Save and publish

Click Save to store your work. You will see “Automation saved.” A flow can be saved as often as you like without going live. Before it saves, Callivox checks the flow. Common messages:

• “Add at least one trigger and one action.”
• “Add a trigger to start the automation.”
• {Field} is required. for a required setting left blank
• “Time must be in 24-hour HH:mm format (e.g. 19:00).” on a schedule
• Request body is not valid JSON. on an HTTP block

If several problems exist you will see Can't save — {first message} (and N more). Fix them and save again. When you are ready, click Publish. It saves first, so the live version is exactly what you are looking at, then arms the trigger. The status chip turns Published and you will see “Automation published.” Edit a published flow and the chip becomes Published — unsaved changes until you publish again.

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Next steps