Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
👤 For pipe admins
🔐 Available on all plans
🎯 For anyone who needs to understand how a pipe is put together and where each rule takes effect
Every process runs on rules: automations that fire in each phase, fields people have to fill in, SLA deadlines, AI steps, and connections to other pipes. Those rules usually live on separate screens, which makes the full picture hard to see.
Flow brings them together in one place. You get your phases, the automations tied to each one, and the fields that capture information along the way, so you can see not just what your process does, but where each rule kicks in.
How to access Flow
Open any pipe.
Click the Flow tab, next to Map and Kanban.
Flow is where you review a pipe end to end: what's set up, where it happens, and what comes next. Reach for it when you're about to change a process, when you're handing a pipe over to someone else, or when a card lands somewhere you didn't expect.
What you're looking at
Flow shows you three things, repeated across the view:
What you see | What it shows |
Phases | Each phase in your pipe, along with the fields it collects |
Automation cards | The automations tied to that phase, grouped by the type of action they run |
Field lists | The fields that make up each phase form |
Nothing disappears just because it's empty. A phase with no automations still shows up, with "No automations at this phase — Add automation", so you can always tell the difference between something that isn't set up and something that isn't being displayed.
Trace where cards can go
Hover over a phase
Hover over a phase and Flow highlights every phase a card can move to from there, with a dotted line connecting them. Everything else fades into the background.
In a couple of seconds, you know every route out of that point in the process.
Hover over a "Move card" or "Move parent card" automation
Hover over one of these and Flow highlights only the pair it connects: where the card starts, and the phase or pipe it lands in.
Same idea, tighter scope. Instead of every route out of a phase, you see what one rule does.
Lock the lines while you study the flow
Click the lock icon on a phase or an automation card to pin the lines in place. With them locked, you can scroll, zoom, and look around other blocks without losing the path you're tracing. Click the lock again to release it.
It's the difference between glancing at a connection and actually following a path across a large pipe.
Why automations appear where they do
Automations aren't placed at random. Each one sits next to the phase named in its trigger, so the layout follows the logic:
Automations sit inside the block of the phase named in their trigger.
Move card and Move parent card automations sit above that phase, since they push cards forward.
Create card and Create connected card automations sit below it, since the work they create runs alongside the flow.
Automations with no specific phase in the trigger — a card expiring in the pipe, for instance — sit at the start of the flow.
When a phase has several automations of the same type, they're grouped behind a counter, so a busy phase stays readable.
Within a phase, automations always appear in the same order: AI, tasks, emails, field updates, assignee distribution, formulas, HTTP requests, and SLA rules.
Automation types you'll see
Automation | What it does |
Ask AI | Hands the card to AI to generate or fill in content — classifying expense type and cost center as soon as a card is created, for example |
Send a task | Creates a task for someone to work through — prioritizing an analysis when urgency is high, for example |
Send email template | Sends a preconfigured email — a receipt confirmation to the requester, for example |
Update a field | Writes a value into a field on its own — setting validation status once an invoice checks out, for example |
Distribute assignees | Shares cards out across a group — round-robin between managers at approval, for example |
Apply formula | Runs a formula and writes the result to the card |
Make an HTTP request | Calls an external system from inside the flow |
Apply SLA rules | Sets a deadline — an approval SLA once the card reaches the manager, for example |
Move card | Moves the card to another phase |
Move parent card | Moves the parent card of a connected card |
Create card | Creates a new card — a satisfaction survey once a request wraps up, for example |
Create connected card | Creates a card in another pipe and connects it to the current one |
Act on what you see
Flow isn't just a picture. Every block links straight to the place where you edit it.
Click | What happens |
An automation card | Opens that automation in a new tab |
Add automation | Opens the Automations page in a new tab, ready for a new one |
A field | Opens that field's settings |
Add a field | Opens the phase editor, so you can add a field to that specific phase |
Go to pipe | On automations that create a connected card or move a card in another pipe, opens that pipe in a new tab |
Go to pipe does more work than it looks like: it's how you follow a process that doesn't end in a single pipe. When a workflow spans several of them, Flow gives you the thread to follow.
Edit a phase without leaving Flow
Each phase header has a three-dot menu, with the actions you'd normally go hunting for in the phase settings:
Action | What it does |
Edit phase | Opens the phase settings, where you can rename it and change its fields |
Move phase to the right/ left | Reorders the phase in the pipe |
Move card settings | Sets which phases a card can be moved to from here |
Delete phase | Removes the phase from the pipe |
Move card settings is what drives the highlight you see when you hover over a phase: the destinations it lights up are the ones allowed here. If a route is missing, this is where you add it.
Pipe information
Click Pipe information to open a side panel with the pipe's setup at a glance:
Total phases and pipe SLA.
Pipe description — worth adding if it's still empty, so anyone who opens the pipe knows what it's for.
Labels used in the pipe.
Pipe admins: who can see this area and edit the pipe.
Tips
Lock the lines when you need to dig in. With the lock on, you can scroll and zoom without losing sight of the connections between phases. It pays off most in large pipes.
Pay attention to what sits above and below a phase. Those automations move cards or spin up new work, so they show you where the process branches from that point.
Start with Pipe information when the pipe isn't yours. Phase count, SLA, and admins give you the shape of the process before you get into the details.
For more tips like this, join the Pipefy Community, where you can share your questions, give feedback on our product, and interact with other members.
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