Managing Workflows

This article describes how to manage the lifecycle of Box Automate workflows, from initial admin enablement to end-user management and long-term governance. Use these guidelines to ensure your automated processes remain efficient and compliant with your organization's content management policies.

Managing Your Workflows

Once enabled, you can create, edit, and monitor your personal or team workflows directly from the Box web application. Efficient management helps prevent redundant automations and ensures tasks trigger as intended.

Creating and Editing Workflows

To manage a workflow:

1. In the left sidebar, click Automate.
2. To create a new workflow, click New+.
3. To modify an existing process, click the existing workflow name and select Edit.
4. Adjust your triggers (such as "File Uploaded") and outcomes (such as "Move File").
5. Click Activate to begin the automation.

Tip Use descriptive names for your workflows to help identify their purpose quickly in the management dashboard.

Workflow tracking 

You can view the status of recent workflows tasks to verify they completed successfully. If a workflow fails, check the activity log for specific error details related to file permissions or folder paths.

To monitor an activity:

1. In the left sidebar, click Automate.
2. Find the specific workflow, and to the right of the Status column, click View Details.  

Workflow Sharing and Collaboration

Sharing a Workflow

When you create a workflow, you become its Owner. You can then invite collaborators to help build and manage it. To share a workflow:

1. Navigate to Automate and open the workflow you want to share.
2. From the header, click the Share button.
3. Enter the name of a Box user or Box Group you want to invite.
4. Select a role for the collaborator (Editor or Viewer).
5. Optionally, add a message to include in the sharing notification.
6. Click Send to share the workflow.

Collaborator Roles

Each collaborator on a workflow is assigned one of the following roles:

• Owner: Full control of the workflow, including the ability to transfer ownership. Only one user can be the Owner.
• Editor: Can modify workflow logic and share the workflow with Viewers and Initiators, but cannot publish, delete, or deactivate the workflow.
• Viewer: Can view the workflow configuration and execution history, but cannot make changes.
• Initiator: Can manually start the workflow and view execution history.

Permissions by Role

The following table summarizes what each role can do:

*Editors can add or remove Viewers and Initiators but cannot change the Owner.

Content Permissions in Shared Workflows

Keep the following in mind when collaborating on workflows:

• Collaborators can only view and interact with files and folders they already have access to in Box.
• Removing a collaborator does not revoke their existing Box permissions on files and folders, so the workflow continues to execute without interruption.

Governance and Lifecycle Management

Proper governance ensures that workflows do not persist indefinitely after they are no longer needed. Maintaining a clean automation environment reduces technical debt and prevents unauthorized file movements.

Deactivating and Deleting Workflows

When a project ends or a process changes, deactivate or delete the associated workflow to avoid unintended actions on your files.

To deactivate a workflow:

1. In the left sidebar, click Automate.
2. Locate the active workflow and click the ellipsis 
3. Click Deactivate the workflow

Important: Deactivating a workflow stops all future triggers, but doing so does not stop actively running executions. To permanently remove a workflow and its history, select Delete from the More Options menu. This action cannot be undone.

Ownership Transfers

If a workflow owner leaves the organization, admins should transfer ownership of business-critical automations to a new user. This prevents service interruptions for shared processes.