*Workflows › Introduction*

# Quickstart: run a workflow from a template

> In about ten minutes you will create a workflow from a template, publish it, run it once by hand and see what happened, step by step.

> **Before you start:** You need an administrator role: only administrators create, publish and run workflows. This example asks Neo, the AI assistant, a question, so it uses AI credits, and it sends one email. Use your own address as the recipient.

The template is the one that sends a report from Neo with a link to the full orders spreadsheet. We use it because it needs nothing configured first: it starts by hand, and the blanks other templates leave (a Slack channel, a role) do not apply. It has three steps: «Ask the AI», a spreadsheet export of orders, and «Send email from Filmo».

1. **Create the workflow from the template** Open the Workflows module and press «New workflow». In the dialog choose «Start from a template», search for "report" and pick "Send a Neo report and a link to the full orders Excel". The workflow opens in the editor.
2. **See what you got** The status is «Draft»: a template always starts as a draft that is off and has no version. Click the trigger at the top. It is a «Manual run» with three fields: a question, a recipient and whether to include a web search. Every field a manual trigger declares must be sent when someone runs it.
3. **Run it** With the trigger selected, press «Run workflow». Fill in the form (your own address as the recipient) and confirm. Running by hand publishes the draft first, as version 1 (a toast tells you), and does not switch «Live» on. A manual run does not need the workflow to be live.
4. **Read the run** Open the «Runs» tab. The newest run is selected. Its card shows the state («Queued», then «Running», then «Completed»), how long it took and how many credits it used. Click a step to see what went in («Input») and what came out («Output»).
5. **Check the result** The email arrives with Neo's answer and a temporary link to a spreadsheet of all orders. The spreadsheet is not filtered by your question; the template says so in its description.

## What just happened

- Pressing the button queued a run that pointed at version 1, the version the editor had just published.
- A worker ran the three steps in order. Each step read the value of the one before it: the email body used Neo's answer and the link to the spreadsheet.
- The creator of the workflow, you, was the identity of every step. That is always so: if the creator later loses a permission a step needs, that step starts to fail, whoever presses the button.

## Make it automatic

This workflow starts by hand, so there is nothing to switch on. For a template with a schedule or an event, press «Publish and activate» instead: it publishes and sets the workflow live in one go, and it refuses with a list of what is missing if a required field is still blank.

> **Tip:** Try a different template next: [Templates](https://docs.filmo.io/workflows/templates) explains what each kind needs. The guides build real ones step by step, starting with [Warn sales when a quote is viewed and not signed](https://docs.filmo.io/workflows/guides/quote-viewed-no-signature).

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Canonical URL: https://docs.filmo.io/workflows/quickstart  
Last updated: 2026-10-09