Trigger Types

Every workflow step has a trigger type that determines when it executes. BFF supports four types:

Note: Workflows are feature-flag gated — the workflows feature must be enabled for your company to configure or run them.

Manual Trigger

When to use: For steps that require a deliberate human decision to start.

  • The step waits until someone manually clicks “Start”
  • Common for the first step of a workflow
  • Also used for review/approval gates

Example: A company admin manually triggers the “Monthly Report” workflow at month-end.

Automatic Trigger

When to use: For steps that should execute immediately after the previous step completes.

  • Triggers automatically when the preceding step finishes
  • No human intervention needed
  • Perfect for AI agent steps

Example: After “Pull data from CRM” completes → “Generate draft report” starts automatically.

Conditional Trigger

When to use: For branching logic where the next step depends on the outcome of the previous step.

  • Evaluates a condition after the preceding step
  • Routes to different steps based on the result
  • Enables if/then/else workflow logic

Example: If report value > $10,000 → Route to “Senior Review”. Otherwise → “Standard Processing”.

Scheduled Trigger

When to use: For workflows that should run at specific times.

  • Configured with a schedule (daily, weekly, etc.)
  • Starts the workflow automatically around the specified time
  • Useful for recurring processes

The scheduler is cron-based with roughly 5-minute resolution — scheduled triggers fire at the next scheduler tick after their configured time, not at the exact second. Expect a workflow scheduled for 8:00 AM to start within a few minutes of 8:00.

Example: Run the “Daily Email Triage” workflow every day at 8:00 AM (it will kick off at the first scheduler tick after 8:00).

Combining Triggers

A workflow typically uses multiple trigger types across its steps:

1. [Scheduled] Daily at 8am → Start
2. [Auto] Pull data → executes immediately  
3. [Auto] Process data → executes immediately
4. [Manual] Review results → waits for human
5. [Conditional] If approved → publish; if rejected → revise

Tip: Use automatic triggers for AI agent steps and manual triggers for human review points. This creates an efficient human-in-the-loop pipeline.