What is a workflow?
A workflow is a reusable template for collections. It holds the questions people answer when they submit an idea, the Inbox, and the steps an idea moves through. When you use a workflow for a collection, Hives copies all of it into that collection.
What a workflow contains
A workflow is a blueprint. It holds:
- What you are collecting: ideas, feedback, posts, insights, solutions or suggestions. This sets the word Hives uses in counts and emails, and the icon and colour on cards.
- The submission form: the questions people answer when they submit. A new workflow starts with Title, Description and Attachment.
- The Inbox: where every new idea lands first, with its own questions and settings.
- Steps: the stages after the Inbox, for example “Qualify”, “Evaluate” and “Implement”. Each step has its own questions, panel and settings.
- Reactions: whether people can like or vote on ideas, and whether submitters may hide their idea from other members.
This help centre uses “idea” for every contribution. A collection can call them feedback, posts, insights, solutions or suggestions instead.
How workflows and collections fit together
A collection is where people actually submit ideas. A workflow is only the template.
When you choose a workflow for a collection, Hives makes a copy. From then on, the collection’s form, Inbox and steps belong to the collection. This has three consequences:
- Changing a workflow only affects collections that use it afterwards. Existing collections stay as they are.
- Changing a collection’s steps or questions never changes the workflow.
- Deleting a workflow does not change or delete any collection.
There is no way to push workflow changes out to existing collections. To change one collection, edit its steps directly. See Changing the steps of one collection.
Who can manage workflows
| Who | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Admins | Create, edit and delete workflows, their steps and their questions. |
| Managers and collection managers | Pick a workflow for a collection they manage. Managers can also open the workflow list, but cannot change workflows. |
| Members and guests | Nothing. They never see workflows, only the steps of collections they can see. |
A collection manager is someone named as a manager of a specific collection. This is different from the Manager role. Read more in Roles and permissions.
Finding your workflows
- Open Menu > Admin.
- Click the Workflows card.
You see a card for each workflow, sorted by name. Each card shows the workflow’s name, an icon for what it collects and the number of steps. Click a card to open the workflow editor.
If your hive is new, the list may be empty. Create your first workflow with New. See How to create a workflow.
When to use a workflow
Workflows save time when several collections follow the same process. For example, every site in your organisation might run its own improvement collection with the same steps and scoring questions. Build the process once as a workflow, then pick it for each new collection.
If a collection needs a one-off process, you do not need a workflow. Add steps directly in the collection instead. See Adding and setting up steps.
Common questions
Can I copy a collection? No. To reuse a setup, build it as a workflow and pick that workflow for each new collection.
I changed a workflow. Why did my collection not change? Collections keep their own copy. Edit the collection’s steps directly. You can’t apply the same workflow to a collection again to pick up your changes. See Changing the steps of one collection.
Do workflows do things automatically? Not much. Ideas move between steps only when a collection manager, Admin or assignee moves them. The Inbox and steps can send reminder emails and post automatic comments, but they never move ideas by themselves. See How to move an idea to another step.