Workflow SuiteWorkflow Suite

Manual runs and workflows started by another workflow

Two triggers do not react to your store at all: Run manually starts when you say so, and Started by another workflow starts when one of your other workflows calls it. This page also covers the step on the calling side, Start another workflow.

Run manually

Use it for jobs you start by hand, for example tagging all products of a vendor.

  1. Choose the trigger Run manually.
  2. Build the steps, save, and select Turn on.
  3. Select Run now in the toolbar above the canvas. The button is shown while the workflow is on and has no unsaved changes.

A run started with Run now is a real run: it changes your store, counts against your plan and alerts you when it fails. To try the workflow without changes, use Test instead. See Test, preview and debug.

Run now is available for every trigger, not only this one. With an event trigger it uses the trigger's sample event.

Started by another workflow

Use it to share steps between workflows, or to continue work later without keeping the first run waiting.

In the workflow that is started

  1. Choose the trigger Started by another workflow.
  2. Build the steps. They read what the caller sent as event.payload.
  3. Save and turn it on. A Start step fails while the workflow it names is off.

In the workflow that starts it

  1. Add the step Start another workflow.
  2. Pick the Workflow. The list holds your workflows with the trigger Started by another workflow.
  3. Optional: fill in Payload (JSON), what the started workflow reads as event.payload. Leave it empty to pass on the event of this run. Add the json filter to text values.
  4. Optional: set Start in (minutes) to start it later, up to 90 days. Leave it empty to start it now. A run that waits to start is listed as Waiting in the run history.
{ "order_id": {{ event.payload.admin_graphql_api_id | json }}, "reason": "late" }

How the two runs relate

  • The step starts the other workflow and goes on at once. It does not wait for that run and cannot read its result.
  • The started run is a real run. It counts against your plan and shows in the run history of that workflow. The run detail shows the chain of workflows that led to it.
  • The started workflow's trigger filter still applies. When it does not match, nothing starts and the step reports started: false.
  • A workflow cannot start itself, directly or through other workflows. Such a start is refused and the step fails. See Loop protection.
  • Secrets cannot be passed in the payload, because the payload is kept in the run history. The started workflow reads its secrets itself.
  • In a preview the other workflow is not started.

Later steps of the calling workflow can read started, runId, workflowName and startsAt from the step's result.