Workflow Lifecycle

Every workflow in Hashdata goes through different states throughout its use. Understanding the lifecycle is fundamental to managing processes safely, avoiding interruptions in progress, and maintaining control over what is in production. This guide explains each state, how to transition between them, and best practices for each situation.

Workflow States

A workflow can be in one of the three main states below. Each state determines what can be done and whether new instances are accepted.

State	Description	Accepts new instances
Pending draft	The workflow has been edited and saved as a draft, but has not yet been published. It can coexist with a published version already running.	Depends on the published version
Published + Enabled	The most recent version of the workflow is active in production. The trigger is monitoring events and any firing creates a new instance.	Yes
Published + Disabled	The workflow has been published but is temporarily paused. The trigger does not create new instances. Instances already in progress continue normally until completion.	No

Working with Drafts

The draft is the way to work on a workflow's settings without affecting what is already in production. Every time you open the editor and make a change, those changes are saved as a draft until you decide to publish or discard.

What is a draft

A draft represents an editing version of the workflow that has not yet been made available for production. It exists independently of the published version: while you adjust steps, recipients, or conditions in the draft, the published version continues running normally and accepting new instances without any interruption.

This means it is safe to edit an active workflow. The changes you make in the editor do not impact running instances or the current behavior of the process.

How to save a draft

When making any modification in the workflow editor, click the Save draft button in the top bar of the editor. The system will record all changes made up to that point as a pending draft. You can save as many times as you want before publishing.

A visual indicator in the workflow listing signals when there is a pending draft for that workflow, making it easy to identify what needs to be reviewed and published.

How to discard a draft

If you decide that the changes no longer make sense, click the Discard button in the editor. This will erase all unpublished changes and restore the editor to the state of the last published version.

Caution when discarding

Discarding a draft is an irreversible action. All unpublished changes will be permanently removed. Confirm that you really don't need these changes before proceeding.

Draft coexisting with published version

An important behavior to understand: a workflow can simultaneously have a pending draft and an enabled published version. In this scenario, new instances continue to be created by the published version while you work on the draft. Only after publishing the draft will new instances start using the updated configuration.

Publishing a Workflow

Publishing is the act of transforming the draft into the active version in production. After publishing, the configurations you edited take effect for all new workflow triggers.

How to publish

In the workflow editor, click the Publish button in the top bar. The system will validate the workflow (checking that all required nodes are correctly configured) and, if there are no errors, the new version will be published immediately.

What happens when publishing

When publishing a workflow, the following occurs:

1. The pending draft becomes the new active version.
2. The workflow automatically enters the Published + Enabled state, ready to accept new instances.
3. Instances that were already in progress continue using the previous version until completion — they are not automatically migrated to the new version.
4. All new trigger firings will create instances based on the new published version.

This behavior ensures that already-started processes are not interrupted or unexpectedly altered by a design update.

Version compatibility

Instances in progress always finish in the version they were started in. This is especially important when there are significant structural changes, such as removing steps or changing the forms used.

Enabling and Disabling

After publishing, you can pause and resume the workflow without needing to edit or republish anything. This is done through the enable and disable options.

How to enable or disable

In the workflow listing, click the context menu (three-dot icon) for the desired workflow. The Enable and Disable options will be available depending on the current state of the workflow.

You can also access this option from the workflow details page.

Difference between disabling and canceling

Disabling a workflow does not cancel instances that are already in progress. They continue advancing normally through Approval nodes, wait periods, or any other step — until they are completed or fail on their own.

What changes when disabling is that no new trigger firings will create a new instance. The trigger stops monitoring events while the workflow is disabled.

Running instances are not canceled

When disabling a workflow, all already-started instances continue running normally. If you need to interrupt specific instances, you must cancel them individually on the instance management screen.

When to use the disable option

Disabling is ideal in situations such as:

• Planned maintenance: you need to review the workflow before accepting new responses.
• Process review: the flow needs to be validated by another team before going live again.
• Recess or low-demand period: the process should not be triggered for a specific period.
• Post-update testing: you published a new version and want to verify the behavior before releasing it to all triggers.

When resuming, simply use Enable in the context menu and the workflow will start accepting new triggers immediately.

Cloning a Workflow

Cloning allows you to create a complete copy of an existing workflow, including all nodes, configurations, and connections. The result is a new workflow with the original name followed by (copy), in draft state, ready to be edited and published independently.

How to clone

In the workflow context menu in the listing, click Clone. The system will immediately create a complete copy of the workflow. The copy will appear in the listing as a new item, with a name in the format [Original name] (copy).

Use cases for cloning

• Process variations: create slightly different versions of the same flow for different contexts (for example, approval workflow for different departments).
• Backup before major changes: clone before restructuring a complex workflow, ensuring a safe return point.
• Structure reuse: use a well-configured workflow as a starting point for a new process with a similar structure.

The cloned copy has no instance history, is not published, and does not interfere with the original. You can rename it and adjust it freely before publishing.

Deleting a Workflow

Deletion is a permanent action that removes the workflow and all its history from the platform. For this reason, the system requires explicit confirmation before completing the operation.

How to delete

In the workflow context menu in the listing, click Delete. A dialog box will be displayed asking you to confirm the deletion by typing the workflow name or completing a confirmation captcha. After confirmation, the workflow is permanently removed.

Deletion is irreversible

Deleting a workflow permanently erases the design, all historical instances, execution records, and any data linked to the process. This action cannot be undone. If there are instances with important history for auditing or compliance, consider disabling the workflow instead of deleting it.

Prefer disabling over deleting

If the workflow has a relevant instance history — such as approval records, responded forms, or process evidence — prefer disabling instead of deleting. The disabled workflow preserves all history and can be reactivated at any time, while deletion removes everything permanently.

Flow Summary

To facilitate visualization, this is the typical flow of a workflow from creation to continuous operation:

1. Create the workflow and configure the nodes in the editor.
2. Save as draft as many times as needed while adjusting settings.
3. Publish the workflow — it becomes Published + Enabled automatically.
4. The trigger starts monitoring events and new instances are created.
5. When needed, temporarily disable for maintenance or review.
6. Edit, save as draft again, and publish the updated version.
7. New instances will use the new version; old ones continue in the original version.
8. If the process is no longer needed, delete it — or, if there is valuable history, keep it disabled.