Start the workflow

The four trigger types in detail — manual, schedule, webhook and event — and the execution-mode policy that decides whether a caller waits for the result.

A workflow does nothing until something starts it. Two decisions sit behind that: who starts the run — a person, the clock, an external system, or the platform itself — and whether that caller waits for the result.

The pages

  • Triggers — the four types side by side, what is true of all of them, and the manual trigger in full.
  • Schedule triggers — the cron expression, why the timezone is not cosmetic, when the first run happens, and designing for at-least-once.
  • Webhook triggers — where the address comes from, the one method it accepts, and the four parts of the payload.
  • Event triggers — subject patterns with * and >, the envelope the workflow reads, and de-duplication on the event id.
  • Execution modes — what has to be true before any of them can produce a run, and who decides whether the caller waits.

The short version

If the run is started byUseAnd read
A person, on demandA manual triggerTriggers
The clockA schedule triggerSchedule triggers
A system you do not controlA webhook triggerWebhook triggers
Something happening in Revenue CloudAn event triggerEvent triggers

A workflow can carry several triggers at once, and usually should: a schedule for the unattended path, plus a manual trigger so you can re-run the job by hand without waiting for the next firing.