Workflows (beta) are used to track and analyze tasks that you expect visitors to complete. This article provides guidance on how to configure workflows for tracking these tasks and how to view workflow analytics.
Note: Workflows are currently available to select customers through a closed beta program. If you're interested in gaining access to workflows, contact your Pendo account representative.
Understand workflows
Workflows help you identify completion rates among visitors as they engage in required processes in your apps. They consist of a starting and ending point and allow you to monitor progress across different apps. You can also apply a segment to view behavioral patterns for a specific group of visitors based on metadata.
For tasks you expect to occur repeatedly, you can create a recurring workflow and use different charts to analyze repeated completion attempts.
Some workflows might have short completion timeframes, while others might extend over several days. For instance, consider a workflow that's designed to complete within a day:
- Visitors who start and end the workflow within 24 hours are considered as Complete attempts.
- Visitors who start the workflow but don't finish before the maximum time elapses are considered as Incomplete attempts.
- Visitors who haven't started the workflow at all but have had any activity in either app in the selected date range are considered as having Not Started the workflow.
Workflows list
In the left-side menu, select Behavior > Workflows. This opens the Workflows page, which lists all workflows visible to you. If you haven’t created a workflow or can't see any existing workflows, this page prompts you to create a new workflow.
The list of workflows exists in a table format that consists of the following columns:
- Workflow Name. The configured name for the workflow. The default naming is "New Workflow - [Date @ Time]" with the date and time of when it was created.
- Starting App. The application where the workflow begins.
- Ending App. The application where the workflow ends.
- Type. Recurring or non-recurring.
- Created By. The user ID of the person who created the workflow.
- Created Date. The date and time that the workflow was created.
- Visibility. "Everyone" or "Only Me". Workflows visible to everyone appear on the Workflows list for all Pendo users and anyone in your subscription can view, edit, or delete them.
- Last Updated By. The user ID of the person who most recently updated the workflow.
- Last Updated Date. The date and time that the workflow was most recently updated.
Create a workflow
To create a workflow, select + Create New Workflow in the top-right corner of the Workflows page. This creates and opens a new workflow, which you can rename by selecting the name at the top and entering a new name. This name appears on the workflows list.
Next, configure the following workflow settings:
- Select the Segment of visitors you want to analyze. Keep in mind that this selection persists as your segment filter when you navigate to other pages in Pendo.
- Select the Date Range to filter workflow data. Custom date ranges are limited to 90 days.
- From the Details section, make your selections for Workflow Start. This is the app and event (Page or Feature) that begins the workflow.
- In the same Details section, make your selections for Workflow End. This is the app and event that indicates the end of the workflow, which visitors much reach before the maximum time has elapsed.
- Choose whether the workflow is recurring. Recurring workflows are tasks that you expect visitors to complete more than once. Indicating that a workflow is recurring provides analytics relevant for repeated tasks. Charts show the number of attempts and attempts per time interval, such as the number of workflow events by week, with complete and incomplete counts.
- Set the workflow Visibility. "Only Me" hides the workflow from all other Pendo users, meaning that only you can see it in your Workflows List. "Everyone" shares the workflow with every Pendo user, who can then view, edit, or delete the workflow.
- Optionally, open the Advanced Options dropdown and select the Maximum Time To Complete Workflow, between 1 hour and 90 days. This option defines the amount of time given to visitors to complete the workflow, which allows you to see completion rates as defined by the duration chosen under Maximum Time to Complete Workflow and how long it takes for visitors to complete a business process.
- A workflow is considered incomplete if the time between steps exceeds the specified time.
- For example, if the maximum time is set to 1 hour, visitors have one hour to complete the workflow once they've started before the workflow is considered incomplete.
- This is different from the Date Range filter described in step 2 above, which limits the completion data that you see as a Pendo user to only those workflows started within a specific time period.
- Select Save to save and run your workflow to view the analytics.
Once saved, you can access the workflow through Behavior > Workflows.
You can edit the workflow at any time by opening the workflow from the Workflows page and making changes to the relevant filters and details. Once you've made your changes, select Save to run the workflow and view the analytics.
View workflow completion and attempt rates
Open an existing workflow from the Workflows list to view its analytics. The Home tab is the default view, which shows you the overall completion and attempt rates.
Filters
Use the filters at the top to view visitor completion and attempt rates for specific groups of people and over specific periods of time.
In the Home tab, you can additionally expand the Details under the segment and date filters to see what the workflow involves. You can make changes to these details to see the impact they have on your workflow analytics. Select Save to run the workflow and view the analytics.
Highlights
The Highlights section in the Home tab gives you key takeaways:
- Completion Rate tells you what percentage of visitors that started the workflow also finished it within the specified timeframe.
- Median Time to Complete tells you the middle value for the time it takes visitors to complete the workflow.
- Visitor Completions tells you how many visitors have successfully completed the workflow within the specified timeframe.
To measure process improvements over time, select the Want to measure impact against a baseline? link in the top-right corner of the Highlights section. This opens a window over the workflow details that prompts you to choose a date range for your baseline to compare previous metrics against your current metrics.
This looks up what the workflow metrics were during the time period that you specify and updates the Highlights chart to summarize key trends as percentages: how much higher or lower the workflow completion rate is, how much faster or slower visitors are to complete the workflow, and changes in the number of completions. Everything else in the workflow details stays the same.
You can change or clear the baseline by selecting Edit in the top-right corner, next to the date range already there.
Completion rates
The first chart in the Home tab shows the total workflows data, with the total number of eligible visitors for the workflow and how many are in each status:
- Completed. Visitors who used the events defined as Workflow Start and then Workflow End within the timeframe and before the maximum time elapsed.
- Incomplete. Visitors who used the Workflow Start event but didn't end before the maximum time elapsed.
- Not Started. Visitors who are counted in the workflow but never used the Workflow Start event.
The stacked bar chart displays percentages for each status. Data is filtered by segment and date range. The number of visitors eligible for workflow analytics is the total number of visitors in the segment that have used either of the apps defined in your workflow during the specified date range.
If the workflow is non-recurring, Visitor Completion is the only available setting. If the workflow is recurring, the chart can show Visitor Completion or Workflow Attempts during the date range.
To gain an understanding of how often visitors are succeeding at the workflow, you can use the second chart to view completion rates over time.
The second chart in your workflow analytics displays the total workflow data from the first chart in time intervals over the date range. These intervals can be daily, weekly, or monthly. You can adjust the intervals using the dropdown menus at the top of the visualization. Some intervals aren't available depending on the length of the date range.
You can also use this visualization to track a guide's impact on your workflow to see if it has helped drive adoption of a process and to decide on the need for further intervention. Select the guide you want to evaluate from the dropdown menu in the top-right of the second chart, and make sure the publish date for your guide falls within the date range for the workflow.
Visitors who completed the workflow are in pink. Visitors that started but didn't complete the workflow are in blue. Visitors who didn't start the workflow aren't included in these metrics.
For non-recurring workflows, the chart is cumulative, allowing you to see how much completion and attempt rates increase over time.
For recurring workflows, the chart separates the total workflows data into granular completion and attempt rates at each interval in the chart.
Tip: If a workflow is being attempted more times than you expect, your visitors might be struggling with the workflow. When the workflow's attempts are less than you expect, this could be that your visitors are unsure how to begin or finish the workflow. If this is the case, consider creating a guide that walks them through the process.
Time to complete
The Time to Complete chart shows you what proportion of completed workflows took different periods of time to complete. You can set the intervals of this chart to minutes, hours, days, or weeks.
You can also choose between a Distribution (default) or Cumulative view. To change from the default view, select Distribution from the top of the chart to open the dropdown menu and choose Cumulative.
To the right of the chart, you can see the median and average number of days it takes visitors to complete the workflow. The median number is the same as the number shown in the Highlights section at the top of the page.
The Time to Complete chart is useful for assessing whether you've improved a business process. After discovering a critical bottleneck or problematic process, the chart can help you measure the impact of implementing an intervention to deal with this.
Visitors table
At the bottom of the workflow's analytics page is a breakdown table of raw data used to construct the charts. Columns show the values for Not Started, Incomplete, and Complete statuses, as well as average time to complete. Recurring workflows also show the average number of times completed and not completed.
To further break down this data, you can group this data by any of the metadata associated with your active visitors and show completion data by role, department, or other criteria.
In the top-right of this section, you can also download data in this breakdown table as a CSV file using the Download CSV button and add or remove columns using the Manage columns button.
View workflow journeys
Use journeys to gain context and visibility into completion paths, and save time by building guides on the most impactful steps in the process. Completed workflow journeys represent the unique, sequential steps visitors followed to complete a workflow, and how long it took them to reach the end point.
For more information about journeys, see Workflow journeys.