FlexFiles Documentation
Product guides, tutorials, and operational reference
Workflows and Automation
Advanced users8 min read

Multi-Step Automations

This page focuses on sequencing, validation, operational safety, and handoff points in workflow design.

Design principles

  • Keep each workflow purpose-specific.
  • Validate source quality before expensive downstream steps.
  • Add monitoring and retry logic where files may vary in quality.
  • Separate human-review checkpoints from fully automated paths.

Example chain

  1. 1

    Collect a file through a guest upload link.

  2. 2

    Repair or deskew the source if needed.

  3. 3

    Run OCR or extraction.

  4. 4

    Store the output in a workspace folder and trigger indexing or review.

Where human handoff still matters

  • Legal or policy changes that require interpretation, not just extraction.
  • Hiring decisions that need evidence review and recruiter judgment.
  • Low-quality source files that fail validation repeatedly.

Design mistakes to avoid

  • Automating a process before the team agrees on its true output.
  • Skipping validation to make the workflow look simpler than it is.
  • Combining unrelated business purposes into one oversized automation.