
Feature availability:
Customized workflows: Available only for WorkDrive Business plan and Zoho One users.
Default workflows (Review, Approval, Review and Approval): Available for all team plans.
Automate your routine content-specific business processes and optimize the flow of work in your organization with WorkDrive Workflow!
The Workflow feature empowers you to automate repetitive tasks like approvals, data collections, and task assignments, leading to improved efficiency in your business processes. By leveraging this functionality, you can minimize errors, enhance communication, foster collaboration, and experience a range of other benefits that can help optimize your organization's business processes.
Here are some use cases of automating workflows in WorkDrive:
- Document review processes: With Workflow, you can easily assign team members to review documentation, establish an approval hierarchy, set up conditions to ensure timely reviews, and reduce delays.
- Organize files and folders: Create workflows to automatically organize files and folders as they are added to WorkDrive, making it easier to find information quickly.
- Task assignment and tracking: Automatically assign tasks to team members, track the progress of tasks to ensure timely completion.
By configuring such automation to your business processes, you can enhance business operations, improve efficiency, and achieve superior outcomes.
Understanding the components of Workflow in WorkDrive
- Trigger: A trigger is an event that initiates the workflow. It serves as the starting point for the workflow process.
Example: You can set up a trigger to initiate the document review workflow automatically when a file is uploaded to a designated folder.
- State: States in a workflow refer to the different stages or phases that a task or document goes through during the workflow process. Each state represents a specific step or milestone.
Example: After uploading, the document enters the Under review state, indicating it’s ready for review.
- Transition: The pathway that connects two states in a workflow, representing the movement of a task or document from one stage to another. Once the workflow reaches a specific state, the user must choose one of the available transition paths to proceed and complete the workflow.
Example: After the document is reviewed, the user selects Approve (Transition) to move it to the Approved state.
- Action: A predefined event or series of events that automate tasks at specific states or transitions in a workflow. Actions are triggered automatically when conditions are met, streamlining manual tasks such as sharing files, moving folders, or updating properties.
Example: Once the document is approved, an action automatically shares it with the team.
Below is a comprehensive list of all the available file and folder-based triggers and actions in WorkDrive:

Notes:
- You can add multiple triggers to start the workflow. E.g. file marked as ready, file uploaded, file created, and more.
- You can configure a maximum of 5 actions in each state/transition for both file and folder-based workflows.
File triggers
- When file properties are added/updated via data template
- When file is uploaded
- When file is moved
- When file is copied
- When file is created
- When file is marked as ready
Folder triggers
- When folder properties are added/updated via data template
- When folder is uploaded
- When folder is moved
- When folder is copied
- When folder is created
File instant actions
- Share
- Move
- Copy
- Mark as Final
- Associate data template
Folder instant actions
- Share
- Move
- Copy
- Associate data template
- Create folder
Workflows in WorkDrive
Automatic Workflows | Manual Workflows |
These workflows are triggered automatically based on predefined events or conditions set within the workflow. Once the trigger event occurs (e.g., a file is added, copied, or moved, and more), the workflow starts on its own and progresses through its defined states.
At each stage of the workflow, the assigned user must select one of the available transitions to move the workflow forward to the next stage. | Unlike automatic workflows, manual workflows require manual initiation by a user. This means that the workflow must be started manually from a file or folder within WorkDrive. To begin the manual workflow for a file or folder: Similar to automatic workflows, manual workflows also require the assigned user at each stage to choose a transition in order to progress the workflow to the next stage. |
Initiating the workflow has no user restrictions; it starts automatically when the established trigger condition occurs.
Note: Workflows are currently supported only for team members. If an automatic event is triggered by an external user, the workflow will not be executed. | Only members with the Editor role or higher can initiate this workflow. |
In automatic workflows, participants for the initial transition must be assigned in advance during the workflow setup.
For subsequent transitions, participants can either be pre-defined or dynamically assigned during the workflow, depending on the configuration. | In contrast, manual workflows offer more flexibility—you can configure the workflow without specifying assignees upfront and collect assignee details at the time the workflow is initiated by the user. |
Types available:
File-based workflow | Folder-based workflow |
These workflows are designed to automate events and actions specific to individual files. | Folder-based workflows are focused on automating events and actions related to entire folders. |
File-based triggers include events like file creation, upload, move, copy, marked as ready, or updates to specific file properties. | Folder-based triggers include events like folder creation, upload, move, copy, or updates to folder properties. |
File-based workflows are ideal for automating processes like document approvals, content reviews, or managing specific file types. For example, you might use a file-based workflow to review and approve documents before publication or to categorize uploaded files based on their content. | Folder-based workflows are best suited for automating broader processes, such as organizing content, managing project folders, or automating entire document sets. These workflows can be used to set up and maintain the structure of a cloud storage system, ensuring that files are properly organized and managed at a folder level. |
Currently, WorkDrive offers three pre-defined manual workflows to get you started:
- Review
- Approval
- Review and Approval
Need a tailored solution?
Create custom workflows to fit your team's unique needs. Configure specific triggers, states, transitions, and actions to align with your business requirements.