Triggers

Triggers are the automations in a workflow. Approval steps decide who handles a submission; triggers decide what happens around it — notifications go out, users get created, data flows to other systems — without anyone doing it by hand.

#Adding a Trigger

1. Go to Admin → Forms and open the form.
2. Scroll to Flow Steps and click Add Step → Trigger.
3. Choose the trigger type, give it a name you will recognize on the workflow card, and pick when it should run.

#When a Trigger Runs

Every trigger has a When should this trigger run setting:

Two of these deserve a closer look:

• On approval of a specific flow fires when the step completes, not when the submission arrives at it. If you want something to happen the moment a step's approvers are assigned, that is a notification concern, not a trigger one.
• Upon Demand triggers do nothing on their own. They wait to be called by a conditional step, a scheduled automation, a deadline, or an administrator running them by hand from the submission's Run automation menu.
• Webhooks and Zapier can also be re-run from that menu even when they are set to fire on submit, approval, or deny. Use that to resend a delivery that failed.

#Trigger Types

#Send Notifications

Emails, texts, or in-app notifies the recipients you choose - the submitter, approvers, a group, or an email address collected on the form itself. The full recipient and template options are covered in Notifications. Emails and Muting covers custom templates and quieting the automatic emails.

Use Case: Alert stakeholders when a submission reaches a certain stage.

#Share Submission

Automatically shares the submission with specified users or groups.

Use Case: Give read access to auditors when a submission is approved.

#Create User

Creates new user accounts based on form data.

Use Case: Onboard new employees when their hiring form is approved.

#Create Reminder

Sets up reminders or automations on the submission. In "Notify a user" mode, the trigger creates a personal reminder; in "Run a trigger on schedule" mode, it creates an automation that fires another trigger on a schedule with no recipient.

Use Case: Send a follow-up notification if approval takes too long, or generate a monthly invoice from a customer record.

See Reminders & Automations for the full setup walkthrough.

#Combine PDF

Merges multiple PDF documents attached to the submission.

Use Case: Create a single document package for final review.

#Remove Datalist Value

Reads the answer from a field you choose and removes that option from the list it came from, so later respondents can no longer pick it.

Use Case: Time slots or equipment that can only be claimed once — each submission takes its choice off the menu.

#Create Submission

Creates a submission on another form, filled from this submission's data. Only available on datasource forms.

Use Case: A registration form that spawns a waiver for each person listed in the submission. Pair it with a Wait for Submissions step when the original submission should hold until the spawned ones finish.

#Advance Submission

Approves the current step as a system action, with an optional reason recorded in the history, and moves the submission to the next step — or to final approval if it is on the last one. It only acts on pending submissions.

Use Case: Let a scheduled automation or an expired deadline move a submission along when no human decision is needed. This is the one trigger type a conditional step or the Run automation menu cannot fire - it only ever runs on a schedule.

#Post to Webhook

Sends the submission's data to a URL you choose. Covered in full in Webhooks. A failed delivery can be resent from the submission's Run automation menu.

Use Case: Push each approved submission into your own system the moment it happens.

#Conditional Steps and Triggers

Conditional steps are how a workflow makes decisions, and triggers are one of the things a branch can do: a branch can run one or more Upon Demand triggers, in the order you pick. The operators, branches, and actions live on that page.

One consequence worth knowing: when a conditional step jumps to another flow step, the target step is marked as protected, which prevents it being deleted out from under the conditional logic.