Key concepts and Workflow overview

Users with a Bridge account can create, view, edit, and delete workflows, workspaces, integration authentications, and manage users. Bridge is available for purchase with an Enterprise Smartsheet plan.

Workflows

Workflows automate your business processes. Use workflows to connect different items in your Smartsheet account, and Smartsheet to other systems. When you create a workflow in Bridge, these are the elements you work with:

• Integrations
• Triggers
• Modules
• Data references
• Child workflows
• Junctions
• States

Integrations

With integrations, you can use Bridge to connect Smartsheet to other third-party systems, using them to send or receive information from and to Bridge. Some integrations can also trigger your workflows.

Some third-party systems require a callback URL to complete the setup for Bridge in that system. This URL allows the third-party to call Bridge and enables Bridge to work with that system. Bridge's callback URL is https://oauth.bridge.smartsheet.com/api/settings/oauth/oauth2callback.

Triggers

For a workflow to run, it needs to detect a go-signal. Triggers act like go-signals in a workflow. They can be based on: 

• an integration, 
• a schedule, or
• a different workflow. 

You can also customize a trigger to be based on a specific webhook.

Modules

Modules are the various elements of integrations and utilities. Think of modules as the action(s) that happen when your workflow detects the trigger. You can use them to:

• Push updates from a workflow, 
• pull information into a workflow in real time, or
• manipulate already gathered data for use in other parts of the workflow.

When you use custom-built integration or utility modules in your workflow, you see a Custom Built tag when editing the module. If you’re interested in custom implementation options, contact your Smartsheet advisor or reach out to our sales team.

Data References

Instead of manually entering the values you need in a workflow, you can use data references. What they do is reference values and inputs located elsewhere. 

You can reference data from:

• the Run Log
• a state, or
• a child workflow.

Child Workflows

Child Workflows are workflows triggered by another workflow, called a parent workflow. This may be useful when your workflow is complex, as breaking it into multiple pieces makes it easier to read. 

Additionally, you might have several workflows where a portion of each is the same. Instead of building the same steps over and over, you can build it in a Child Workflow. Then you can trigger it from all the other workflows.

Junctions

Junctions let you route workflows in different directions as needed.

States

States are the individual stages of a workflow. They act like data collectors in workflows. 

The State name influences the data references in the workflow. Changing a state name after you’ve set data references in your module requires you to update the data references for the workflow to run successfully.

Workflows are Bridge’s core feature. With them, you can:

• Eliminate manual and repetitive tasks
• Gather data across platforms and provide actionable insights

How a Bridge workflow functions

Bridge workflows are like the workflows in the Smartsheet app. They start running once they detect the triggers you set up. Then, a series of actions happens based on your set conditions. 

However, Bridge workflows aren’t limited to the activities happening within the Smartsheet app. They can be more complex. You can connect Bridge workflows with different platforms outside Smartsheet to complete your business processes. 

Here are some use cases for Bridge workflows.

Example 1: Project updates

Trigger a Bridge workflow when a new project is created in your project-tracking system. Use Bridge to: 

• Assign the project to the appropriate and available team lead based on the project type
• Create a project in your time-tracking system 
• Send personalized project kick-off emails to project stakeholders

Potential integration: Resource management by Smartsheet

Example 2: Expose comments

Monitor the high-level status of projects or jobs. Create a Bridge workflow that alerts you and sends you the most recent row comment in a cell on the row.

Required integration: Smartsheet