How it works

Cards are a tool for organizing your flow, or adding context to it. They don't affect how a flow actually runs.

It is likely that you will need to connect steps that exist outside of a card. To do this, drag your arrows to other steps in two ways:

Connect to a step outside of a card

The example below shows an arrow being dragged to a step outside of a card. When this flow runs, data will be sent to a Google Sheet in addition to a CSV email attachment.

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Connect to a step in another card

The example below shows an arrow being dragged to a step in a separate card.  When your Flow runs, it will pull in data from a PDF and send it to a Google Sheet. It will also pull further data from Google Drive and combine it to send custom emails populated with your data.

Default settings

By default, a new card will automatically populate with an "Untitled Card" heading and a text block to add rich text.

Adding a step to the card

To add a step to a card, drag a step over the card. A light blue outline will indicate that you can drop the step into the card, and the step will snap into place.

Once the initial step has been added to the card, another blue box appears within the card. You can add new steps to this box.

To expand the card, drop a step where it overlaps a border of the inner blue box, or a border of the card itself.

Adding rich-text formatting

To add rich-text formatting to your cards, click your cursor into the text box, then click the three dot menu that appears.

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Format your text block as a paragraph, bulleted list, numbered list, or heading. You can also add an additional text box above or below the currently selected one or delete a text block from your card.

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Helpful tips

• Italicize your text by pressing ⌘ + I on a Mac or Ctrl + I on a PC
• Bold your text by pressing ⌘ + B on a Mac or Ctrl + B on a PC

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What are card templates

Card templates are great for sharing common data sources, re-using bits of Flows, sharing documentation, and keeping flows up to date.

Templates can be any card that you have decided to save.

Card templates can contain just documentation, just steps, or both.

Why use Card Templates

Use card templates when you find yourself doing the same thing multiple times in the same Flow, or across multiple Flows.

Sometimes when building a Flow, you will need multiple branches of the Flow to use the same logic. You could just copy and paste the steps, but if you instead create a card template, each of those branches is assured to run identically. If you need to make an update to all of the branches, you can just update the card template, and then accept the update on each branch.

Card Templates are also useful for re-using authorization in steps. You can save cards that contain authorized step, like API steps, Shopify, or databases, so that you and your teammates do not need to re-add the auth to ever flow that you use that step in. Sharing auth credentials in a template is optional.

Card Templates do not need to have any steps in them. Use them as a shared source of documentation or best practices that can be kept up-to-date easily.

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How to use Card Templates

Creating a Card Template

Convert any card into a Card Template by clicking on the "Save as a template" button that appears above when you hover over or click on the card.

When creating a card template, the title of the card will become the title of the template, and the first bit of text in the body of the card will be used as a description.

If your card contains any step with saved authentication, an accordion will be available in the "New card template" menu, where you can choose to share all authentications in the card, or not. By default, authentications are shared. Read more about shared authentication below

If your card does not have an emoji on it, then your card template will select one at random. You can adjust that selection in the menu. Card templates are required to have an emoji.

Once you save the Card Template, it will be immediately available for yourself and anyone on your team from the builder toolbar.

As an author, you can always access the menus for your card templates to see how many flows are using each template

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Shared authentications in card templates

When a card template is enabled to share authentications, your teammates can pull that card template into their Flow and use source and destination steps without needing to re-authenticate.

When using a card template that is sharing authentications, you must keep the authenticated steps inside of the Card Template. If you move the step out of the card template, it will lose access to its authentication. Moving the step back into its card template will allow it to authenticate again.

Cards that have been unlinked from their template will lose access to the template's authentications.

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Using a card template in a flow

From the builder toolbar at the top of the page, click on the "Cards" tab to pull up a list of all available card templates, as well as the "Add a blank card" button.

Card templates can also be found by typing in keywords via the builder toolbar search.

To use, simply drag a template in from the builder toolbar to place it on to your canvas, or click it to add it to the center of your canvas.

Card Templates will be added to your flow exactly as they were saved by the author. You can, however, make any changes to that card. When you do so, you will see that the template tag at the top of the card, will say "Edited".

By clicking on the template tag at the top of the card (where the template status is shown), you can see options to revert the card back to the current unedited version in the sidebar, or compare it to the unedited version. Reverting your card will replace it with a fresh copy of the template and break all connection arrows that enter or exit the card. Comparing it will place a fresh copy of the template nearby for you to compare your card to.

You can also unlink this card from the template system, which will turn it back into a normal card. An unlinked card can be re-saved if you wish to make it into a new template.

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Updating a card template

Authors of the original card template can push new updates.

From any edited version of a card template, in any flow, the author of that template can choose to "Save edits to template".

Doing so will pull up the "Save edits to card template" modal, and will show you a summary of your changes, along with a summary of the usage of that card.

When you save your changes, every instance of that template will have its tag changed to "Update available".

Those card templates will continue to work as expected. Editors of flows using templates with updates available can choose what they would like to do with those updates. In the template menu, they can compare the new template to their own, which will insert a copy of the updated template nearby, or to update their template, which will replace their card with a fresh copy of the updated template. This option will remove any arrows connecting into or leaving the card.

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Archiving a template

Authors can also choose to archive a template, which will remove it from the builder toolbar. To do so, click on the archive icon when hovering over any of your templates in the cards section.

Archived templates that are already in use in flows will continue to work, but will not be able to get any more updates.

Authors can undo this action by finding an instance of the card template in a flow, and clicking on the option to restore it.

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