How do you organize your Workflow workflows?

[alangardner]

Agreed, my suggestion to use LCP doesn’t fix the underlining issue of not having built-in organization within the app, but only an alternative to scrolling or searching through a metaphorical junk drawer. Since I couldn’t sleep last night, I’ve outlined what approaches are inherent in the app.

By color
I think this is the original intent of the Workflow developers. There are 15 different colors to choose from, so if you can organize all your workflows into 15 categories this would be a quick visual option. You may have to broaden the scope of a category in order to keep everything within 15 colors.

Spatially by category
Move all your related workflows together. All workflows related to music/playlists get moved together; all workflows related to filing docs to cloud together, etc. Pair this approach with colors or icon to create visual blocks of workflows.

Spatially by run type (Normal, Today Widget, Action Extension)
Since action extensions are most likely to be activated from the share sheet, move these to the bottom. Normal workflows only run in the app, so put these at the top. Put Today Widgets in the middle. If you color code these like @nathanieloffer, you’ll have a nice visual break as you scroll through the three types.

Spatially by type of input
Again, move all workflows that take a particular input together. Might be harder to organize workflows that take multiple types of input.

By frequency of use
Move your most used to the top to reduce scrolling. Would need to be paired with other approach to be effective.

By state
Put finished workflows toward the top. Workflows that are still being written or tested toward the bottom. Specify a specific color to indicate a work in progress. Would need to be paired with other approach to be effective.

By keyword
This is more of a search approach than organization. Let’s call it the SEO approach — stuffing the title with keywords or prepend/append titles with a category (per @sylumer) or emoji (per @dfay) that can be used to find/filter.

Don’t bother
Lastly, don’t even bother trying to organize them until Apple provides something better within the app. Until then “organize” by using a 3rd party app like Launch Center Pro, add them to your home screen or make more use of spotlight.

Given the app’s current options, a combination of the above is your best bet. YMMV

[dfay]

Is there anyone on the iOS 12 developer beta of Shortcuts who can tell us what organisational features (if any) have been added?

[sylumer]

I have the beta for Shortcuts. It is the same as Workflow right now.

[jayelevy]

@dfay ‘s workflow got me thinking about a way to do something similar but based on color scheme. The color metadata is viewable in the Content Graph, but I don’t know how to access it in a workflow.

The content within the “WFWorkflow” item within “Workflow” includes icon information:

Is this information accessible to use as a conditional within a workflow step? I don’t think it is, but thought I would ask… Ideas? — jay

[sylumer]

As you’ve observed, the content graph is a read only tool and it shows you what Workflow is able to draw upon behind the scenes. But not every attribute of every content object in the parent object is directly accessible to the user. It’s just a peek behind the curtain in many respects.

At one point you could look inside a Workflow object by renaming it to a text file and then accessing the content. You would then use the match action to get the info you want.

However, my actions that rely on that approach stopped working earlier this year. It now crashes the app when it tries to process more than one as well as a few other circumstances.

Take a look at this example workflow. Defaults to 1 workflow to process and seems fine. Make it any higher and it crashes. Unless my Workflow-fu is waning, I don’t think there’s a way around that crashing right now. But obviously happy to be proven wrong.

[jayelevy]

Thanks @sylumer. I will play around with this, but I bet your fu has not waned!

[Jjm]

@fglazer how did you make the “things basic project template”? I’m interested in all the”things” you have.

[fglazer]

That is a workflow that came from The Sweet Setup - it’s part of their “all the things” course. It put, appropriately enough, a project into Things with the components of the course as tasks so I can track my progress.

One of those one-time-use and incredibly useful workflows, i can delete it now and get rid of some clutter. thanks for the reminder!

best,
Fran

[Jjm]

I gotta watch that show. Sounds good

[JMarkyBB]

These are my efforts, this has taken some considerable time and patience

This has been continually updated throughout the day, and using the public betas from day one, of them being released.

I’m also on a steep learning curve with regards Workflow, as I want more from it, I want it to work for me.

I’m an app junkie, as you will see, I have over 300 apps, using up 40.8 GB of 64 GB, over 25,000 pictures using 37.9 GB on iCloud

Page One

My Main homescreen, with folders broken up in to genres, all accessible by a click & a swipe or two.

Page Two

My Workflows Screen, depending on my location, task, or state of mind.

Folders on Page 2, My goto Workflows for one of my favourite pleasures, Music,
This is work in progress, as I’ve just figured out haw to add artists pictures to the icons

Page Three

Games Screen, again broken up into Genres, because I know what I’m looking for, when I’m looking.

Page 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10.

Because I’m a Working Jeweller, I want info fast & fluent, I want any link accessible within a swipe or two.

In future updates to iOS I would love to see "Home-Screens’ be come namable and movable, or scenes, dependent on location & time.

[Martin_Packer]

Short answer: I don’t organise my workflows.

[Jjm]

@JMarkyBB looks good. What do you use launch center pro for?

[JMarkyBB]

Hiya Jjm,

I use it, but I don’t use it to its full potential.

I feel I can get more out of it, just don’t know how.

[Jjm]

@JMarkyBB I downloaded the app and couldn’t figure it out so i deleted it, maybe I will play with it again. I see it says group message… do you use that? Is it possible to send a group text out to about 20 people? Right now I use drafts for that.

[JMarkyBB]

@Jjm When clicking Group message a choice comes up of your groups, however you have your contacts set up

[Jjm]

@JMarkyBB thanks. I know you said above you would like to get more out of launch center pro. Someone on another chat thread on here said that if you listen to Mac power users episode 418 @RosemaryOrchard goes over what launch center pro can do and how to use it in workflows, I didn’t listen yet but definitely am going to.

[JMarkyBB]

@Jjm
Cheers for that I will have a listen.

[Lavan]

All, @viticci has graciously provided a workflow that is easy to use. All you need is Drafts app (i have Drafts4) and his recommended workflow. Essentially, you create your project’s templated tasks in drafts, follow his usage criteria, SELECT/COPY your Drafts text to the CLIPBOARD and start his workflow. Bing, Bang, Boom, you’ve got your tasks in Things3, in the correct project, with headings, due dates, notes and tags! The only thing it doesnt address are deadline/suspenses. You can even state your dates in days vs a date. Example, Task X //in 20 days. Hope this helps the discussion.

Things Automation: Building a “Natural Language” Parser in Workflow

[BonnieB]

@JMarkyBB, Here’s a link to that reference :

Launch Center Pro

In Feb. 19 2018 MacPowerUsers episode “Workflows with Rosemary Orchard,” @RosemaryOrchard talks about what Launch Center Pro can do that Workflow and Drafts can’t, especially ways to kick off automation routines via time-based and geolocation-based notifications. LCP section starts at 1 hour, 17 minutes.

(linking to instead of repeating the info, just so I can try it in Discourse…)

[Sebags]

Here is an idea. I’m creating a Menu Shortcut based on type of Shortcuts.

For example I made one for “meetings” related shortcuts. So when I tap on it it gives me a list of options of other Shortcuts related to “meetings”.

I’ll do another one for my OmniFocus Shortcuts and so on. I think it may work…

It’s a way of having folders I guess.

Hope it’s helpful!