Build a Decision automation workflow

SourceDay’s Decision Automation for PO Collaboration empowers your team to build custom workflows that automate routine purchase order (PO) decision-making. This guide walks you through building your first custom workflow from scratch to streamline how you handle supplier changes. Setting a suggested workflow to staged is a great way get started quickly. 

There are three core steps to building your first workflow: 

1. Trigger

2. Refine

3. Action

Note: These instructions are for Admins or delegates who have Custom Automation edit access.  You may not be able to push workflows to Live if your company has not upgraded to Custom Automation Workflows. 

Accessing automation

Start by clicking on the Automation icon in the top navigation bar of your SourceDay dashboard.

Build a workflow

To begin building decision workflows:

1. Click the “+ New Workflow” button.

2. You can select to build your own or try one of our pre-built suggest workflows. These workflows are built on industry standards, best practices and years of PO data analysis. You can also see the potential impact of the workflows on your PO Collaboration. 

3. To build your own select the top option Start from scratch. You’ll be taken to the Workflow Builder, where you can define the conditions that trigger and control your automation.

Step 1: Select the PO event trigger

Choose the PO event that will initiate the workflow. Options include:

• Supplier proposed date, cost, or quantity change risk
  The workflow runs when a supplier proposes a change to a PO line’s date, cost, and/or quantity.

• Supplier proposed cancellation risk
  The workflow runs when a supplier proposes to cancel a PO line.

Step 2: Refine the workflow conditions

The Refine step allows you to narrow or broaden the scope of your workflow by applying specific filters.

Why refine?

Many users begin with multiple filters to minimize risk and increase control, then remove filters over time as they gain trust in the automation. You can define parameters such as:

• Specific suppliers

• Item part number 

• Buyer

• Date of proposal

• Costs

• Quantity variance

Filter options

Filters mirror those available in your PO Dashboard. For example:

• A supplier-proposed date that is:

  • An exact calendar date

  • Within X days of the original PO due date

• A supplier-proposed cost that increases or decreases within a defined threshold

• A proposed quantity that is less than a specified limit

Learn more about refinement filters.

Step 3: Actions

Finally, specify the action that SourceDay should automate on your behalf whenever the previous conditions are met. In the Actions step of the Workflow Builder, you can select one or more actions to be taken:

• Accept – Automate the acceptance of supplier proposals that match the workflow’s conditions

• Reject – Automate the rejection of supplier proposals that match the workflow’s conditions

• Send message to supplier – Automatically send a message on the PO line in response to the supplier proposal whenever the workflow’s conditions are met

Step 4: Workflow status

While building your workflow, you can save your progress as a draft.

There are three statuses a workflow can have:

• Draft – The workflow is saved but inactive. It will not take any actions or log results. Everyone at your company can view the workflow, but only Admins can publish it to live.

• Stage – The workflow is in staging mode. It will log trigger events that meet the refinement conditions, but it will not take any action. Note: this only applies to events that occur after the workflow is staged.

• Live – The workflow is fully active and will take action when the defined conditions are met.

We recommend setting your workflow to staged and monitoring the impact with the workflow history.

You've reached your limit – upgrade to keep things moving!

If you see a message saying "You've reached your limit of Live Workflows", it means your team is maxed out on Custom Automation workflows or has not upgraded to Custom Automations.

Learn more about upgrading to unlock more workflows.

Customer examples

Example 1: Auto-accepting proposed cancellations

A SourceDay customer configured a workflow to auto-accept proposed cancellations from their two largest suppliers, but only on low-quantity orders. This helped them streamline repetitive review processes while maintaining oversight on larger-impact orders.

Example 2: Trust-based cost acceptance

An industrial manufacturer set up automation to auto-accept minor cost changes from one of their most trusted suppliers. Their conditions:

• Ignore any changes to quantity

• Only accept changes if the proposed date remains the same

They used filters such as:

• Active cost proposal

• Active date proposal (must match current PO line date)

Example 3: Rejecting unreasonable proposals and reinforcing terms

A mid-market distributor is using SourceDay Automation to automatically reject unreasonable proposals and remind suppliers to review their terms & conditions. Their workflow sends a rejection and a pre-written message back to the supplier when proposed changes fall outside of acceptable cost or timing thresholds, ensuring clarity and consistency in supplier expectations.

Final tips

• You can edit, clone, or disable workflows at any time in the Automation Dashboard.

• You can stage workflows to evaluate the scope of POs impacted before making the workflow live.

• Use small pilot workflows with limited scope as you build confidence.

• Leverage SourceDay's customer success team to review proposed workflows before launch.