---
title: Workflows
description: Set up automated email sequences and trigger them from your apps
icon: Workflow
---

Workflows in Plunk allow you to create automated email sequences that can be triggered based on events you send using the API.

## Prerequisites for workflows
### Sending an event
Workflows are triggered by sending events to Plunk using the [/v1/track](/api-reference/public-api/trackEvent) endpoint. When sending an event, you can specify the contact it is associated with and include any relevant data.

### Creating a template
Before setting up the workflow, ensure you have created a template that will be used for the emails sent by the workflow. You can create templates in the [Templates](/concepts/templates) section of the dashboard.

## Creating a workflow
To create a workflow, navigate to the [Workflows](/concepts/workflows) section of the dashboard and create a workflow.

<Callout
 title="Trigger"
 variant="idea">
When creating a workflow, you can not change the trigger event after the workflow has been created. Make sure to choose the correct event name that will trigger the workflow.
</Callout>

### Defining workflow steps
Workflows consists of multiple steps that define the sequence of actions to be taken.

| Step Type | Description |
|-----------|-------------|
| Send Email | Sends an email to the contact using a specified template. You can customize the email content using variables from the event data. |
| Delay | Pauses the workflow for a specified duration before proceeding to the next step. |
| Wait for Event | Pauses the workflow until a specified event is received for the contact. You can also set a timeout duration to proceed if the event is not received within that time. |
| Condition | Evaluates a condition based on the event data or contact data and branches the workflow accordingly. |
| Webhook | Sends a webhook to a specified URL with the event and contact data. |
| Update Contact | Updates the contact's data with specified key-value pairs. |
| Exit | Terminates the workflow for the contact. |

## Managing workflow executions
You can monitor and manage contacts going through workflows in the executions tab of the workflow detail page. Here you can see the status of each execution, cancel a specific execution or all executions.

A workflow will be locked while there are active executions. If you want to make changes to a running workflow you will either need to pause it and wait for all executions to complete, or cancel all active executions.