Redesigned Create Workflow Experience

[MeganLegge]

We’ve introduced a new experience for creating a workflow that makes it even easier and faster to create and use automation in HubSpot. With this new update, we’re allowing you to browse and select your workflow trigger before choosing which object type you’d like to build the automation around.

Why is that important enough to warrant a blog post? Great question!

To answer that, let’s level-set on how a workflow…works.

Workflows are based on triggers - e.g. the event that should kick off the series of automated steps in your workflow. So, naturally, the first thing our customers think about when creating a workflow is what should trigger this particular automation?

For example, a form submission from a website visitor needs to trigger an automated email response to the contact, and a notification to a sales rep about a potential new lead.

So what was the issue?

Prior to making this update, the workflow creation process didn’t match up with that “trigger first” mental model! The builder first asked you to select an object type to automate and then showed you all available triggers for that object type. That’s confusing, and it often caused users to have to click through multiple different object types to find the trigger they needed for their automation.

We heard the feedback loud and clear, and we’re now really excited to be able to surface HubSpot’s full library of automation triggers upfront and streamline your workflow creation process (with some added AI goodness to help you work even smarter)!

Read on to learn more about why we’re making this change and how the redesign improves the experience of creating workflows!

All the details

Once your account has access to the new experience (more on that below!), you can check it out by navigating to the workflows app and clicking the orange ‘Create workflow’ button. Select the ‘From scratch’ option, and you’ll enter the new Create workflow experience!

Before: The old create workflow experience

In the past, when creating a workflow, the first step was to choose an object type. For those who hadn’t yet learned HubSpot terminology, that choice was overwhelming and confusing. Even for those with experience, it was often hard to remember which option would offer the trigger you needed. And, furthermore, once you chose an object type, there was no going back to browse other options.

Once in the builder, you were then confronted with another set of choices for setting up your trigger. These three options were categorized by HubSpot’s technology, rather than by your needs and use cases. And again, we were narrowing down your options with each of these choices, by logic that wasn’t clear or transparent.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for, you may waste a lot of time navigating between these options. It was also possible that the trigger you need isn’t even an option, solely because of the object type you chose! While stuck in this flow a customer might assume what they’re looking for is not a feature workflows offers when, in reality, it just exists in a different object type.

These forced decision points, combined with our use of HubSpot terminology, created an unnecessary barrier for customers that just wanted to build an automated workflow.

After: The new create workflow experience

With this change, after clicking to create a new workflow, customers will now go directly into the workflow builder, where they can browse all of the possible workflow triggers! This matches up with the mental model for creating automation, and removes those unnecessary barriers we mentioned earlier.

This redesign doesn’t take away any features or functionality - everything that was possible in the old experience is still possible in the new experience! The new experience just allows you to choose your trigger first, making it easier than ever to find your desired trigger, or discover new trigger options.

When a trigger is selected, the object type will now be set for the workflow automatically where possible. For example, if a form submission trigger is set, then the workflow type will be a contact workflow - automatically!

Don’t worry - you’ll still be able to choose your own object if the selected trigger could apply to multiple different objects. For example, property change triggers.

This update makes it easier for customers to find the best fit trigger for the task at hand, while making the workflow building process quicker with fewer clicks and decisions required in order to get started.

When can I get access?

We’ve been offering the option for customers to request access to the earliest beta version of the new experience for a few months now. A few thousand of you participated, gave feedback, and helped us make a ton of improvements. Thanks again!

As of April 18, 2025, anyone can opt into our Public Beta at any time! We’ll be gradually rolling out the new experience to everyone with access to workflows over the next several weeks.

We know redesigned experiences in popular tools like workflows can sometimes be difficult to adjust to. With that in mind, we’ll have an extended beta period and, during that period, customers can toggle between the new and old workflow experiences as needed.

In the app, you’ll see a green bubble that shows up during both the old and new experiences. Individual users on an account can make this choice for themselves, without affecting other users’ preferred experience.

As always, feel free to leave us feedback directly in-app!

We expect the new experience will go live within a few months, and the option to opt-in and opt-out of the change will be removed. The new experience will be live to all customers, and the old experience will be removed permanently.

Resources

• Loom demo: A new workflow creation experience | Loom
• Knowledge base doc: Create workflows from scratch

[Tobiwan]

Can you plead add “event trigger” to the initial trigger list? Otherwise you have to save any trigger and change it afterwards to use event triggers.

[MeganLegge]

Hi @Tobiwan,

Most of the triggers in the initial list are event triggers - so you can choose them without having to choose an “event” category like in the old UI. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you are trying to find in the new experience that you aren’t able to find? Feel free to send me a direct message if you’d like to schedule a time to talk in greater detail.

Best,

Megan

[Tobiwan]

@MeganLegge What I can use with that new UI is “Is menber of a list” as filter trigger →

But what I often needs ist this one, which behaves different than the filter-trigger:

And we often use “Form submitted” as trigger, which is also not part of the current initial trigger list.

[MeganLegge]

Hi @Tobiwan

I’m not sure what you mean, but you can find the options you are looking for in these places:

Under the Data Changes category, choose the List Membership option, then select the “Added to list” event trigger on the next page

Under the Digital Interactions category, choose the Form events option, then select the “Form submission” event trigger on the next page

Hope this helps,

Megan

[NMarinho]

Hi @MeganLegge!
The thing I really like with the current experience (and I’m afraid to lose with the new experience) is that you can choose to start with the action, not necessarily with the trigger.
I don’t believe that “the first thing our customers think about when creating a workflow is what should trigger this particular automation?”. I think most of them ask what is the purpose of my workflow? → the action

That’s why, for now, I think the old experience is better than the new one.

[MeganLegge]

Hi @NMarinho ,

Thanks for sharing your feedback, we really appreciate the perspective. What you mention is something we’re currently exploring: the ability to start building by adding an action (without having to make any other decisions at all, not object nor trigger). In the meantime, in the new experience, when you are building a workflow where you want to start with an action, what steps do you take?

For example, do you use the Skip link? and if not, is there a better “skip” option you’d like to have?

Thank you!

Megan

[NMarinho]

Hi @MeganLegge

Thank you for your answer!

Actually, I hadn’t notice the “skip trigger” link at the bottom, so I just selected “manual trigger” and then the object and the result is the same.

In the end, it just takes one click more to skip the trigger compared to the current experience, so it’s no big deal Just a little disconcerting when you’re used to a certain way of thinking.

[SFGirl444]

Yay, It is so great how I get relearn how to use hubspot everyday. This is a terrible change. Please do not make awful changes without giving us functionality in exchange.

I would bet money that if we can read the feedback from the tool beta that it they would not be favorable…

[phightower]

These changes are bad. I want to copy a Company “company name” to a Contact “company name,” but only if there is no value in the Contact “company name” property. For some reason, the option to only set or copy a value if there is no value present is gone. WHY?! Now I need to create two workflows to accomplish the same thing with the one tying into the other. Again, not efficient and super cumbersome.

Am I missing something?

[chighsmith]

Hi @phightower,
Thank you for posting to the Community!
I would recommend posting this in our Ideas Forum, as this is a place where users can share suggestions and feedback directly with our product team, and other community members can vote on ideas they’d like to see implemented.
With that being said, I’d like to tag in some of our Top Contributors to see if they have any workarounds -- Hi @karstenkoehler @danmoyle and @franksteiner79 Do any of you all have any ideas on this one?
Thank you in advance!
Cassie, Community Manager

[MeganLegge]

Hi @phightower

The UI update outlined in this post didn’t change anything about the Edit record action. Currently the only option for “don’t overwrite known values” is in the Rotate owner action. With Edit record action, to get a similar result I’d recommend using a branch to check for a value first. That said, if you are seeing something that you still think is unexpected with the Edit record action, can you please open a support ticket?

Thank you,

Megan Legge

[danmoyle]

@phightower Not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but here’s how I do this.

Company based workflow. This screenshot I took is manual, but the trigger can be automated. Something like Company create date is known would work.

Then I made a branch to look at associated Contacts. Here is that branch:

So when there’s an associated contact (or multiple), and no company name in their contact property, the workflow copies from the company name automatically.

Hope that helps!