> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.dmly.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Build a flow > How the flow builder canvas works, and which step groups you get on each channel. A flow is one automation drawn on a canvas: a trigger at the start, steps after it, and lines connecting them. Every automation belongs to a single channel, and the steps on offer change to match what that channel can actually deliver. **The step palette is not the same on every channel.** The **WhatsApp** group only appears on a WhatsApp channel, the **Messenger (FB/IG)** group only on a Facebook or Instagram channel, and an SMS channel loses every media step. This is not a bug or a missing permission — a Telegram bot cannot send a WhatsApp template, so the builder does not offer one. To use WhatsApp steps, build the automation on your WhatsApp channel. ## Start a flow Select **New automation**, then **Start from scratch** or pick one from **Templates**. Under **How do you want to build it?** pick **Flow builder** — a visual canvas with branching and multiple steps. **Quick automation** is the other option: a single trigger and one reply, set up in a form. Choosing **Flow builder** creates the automation straight away and opens the canvas with a trigger already placed, set to your channel's own event — **WhatsApp message** on a WhatsApp channel, **Telegram message** on Telegram, **Google review** on a Google Business Profile. Open it to change the event or add keywords. On **SMS** and **TikTok** the trigger opens as **Choose a trigger** — pick the event before you publish, or the flow will never fire. See [Triggers](/automation/triggers). Select a step in the palette on the right to drop it on the canvas, then drag from one step's output dot to the next step. **Save draft** while you work. **Publish** makes it live and turns the automation **Active**. A quick automation can be moved onto the canvas later with **Edit in Flow Builder**. That is a one-way trip — there is no way back to the form. ## How the canvas works * **One trigger, always.** A flow has exactly one trigger node and it cannot be deleted or doubled. * **One line out of each output.** An output connects to a single next step. Branching happens through a step's separate outputs — a condition's true and false, a randomizer's branches — not by dragging two lines out of the same one. * **A dangling output ends that path.** If nothing is connected after a step, the run finishes there. That is normal for most outputs: not every branch needs an end step. Reply buttons and quick replies are the exception — publish rejects any that is left unconnected. * **A note has no ports.** A note, from the **Other** group, is a canvas-only annotation: nothing connects into it and nothing runs out of it. As the builder puts it, *"Notes are visible only to your team — they never send and don't affect the flow."* * **Amber badges are advice, not errors.** They flag likely problems as you build — an unconnected step, buttons on a channel that cannot show them. The real check runs when you publish. ## The step groups you always get Text, image, video, audio and file messages, plus a step that asks the contact something and waits for their reply. Hand the conversation to an AI step that answers in your words. See [AI replies](/automation/ai-replies). Condition, randomizer, delay, start another flow, and end. Tag, assign, **Handover to Human** (which pauses the bot) and **Resume bot replies**, **Unsubscribe Contact** and **Resubscribe Contact**, **Update Contact Stage** to move the contact to a pipeline stage, **Request Google review**, send an SMS, call a webhook, and connectors such as Google Sheets, Slack, Mailchimp and HubSpot. Book a meeting, send a booking or reschedule link, confirm, cancel, mark a no-show, assign staff. Send a service, product or plan from your catalogue, and check stock. Create and send an invoice, send a payment link, record a payment, create an order or subscription, apply a coupon, issue or deduct credits. Notes you leave on the canvas for your team. Use the search box above the palette to find a step by name; groups with no match disappear. You can collapse the palette to a rail while you arrange the canvas. ## The groups that depend on your channel | Group | Appears when | What it holds | | --------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **WhatsApp** | The automation is on a WhatsApp channel | Buttons, lists, call-to-action links, templates, WhatsApp Flows, catalogue, location send and request, ask for a phone number, CSAT, call permission | | **Messenger (FB/IG)** | The automation is on a Facebook or Instagram channel | Generic and carousel cards, marketing opt-in, e-commerce, and the sequence step | | **Store (Shopify / WooCommerce)** | A store is connected to the workspace | Find an order, send order status, checkout link, send a product, sync the contact, create a discount, update a store note | | **Comment actions** | The trigger you picked is a comment event | Reply to, like, hide or delete the comment | Two of those are worth spelling out. * **Sequences run on Facebook and Instagram only.** The sequence step lives in the **Messenger (FB/IG)** group, so a WhatsApp flow cannot enrol a contact in one. See [Sequences](/automation/sequences). * **Comment actions follow the trigger, not the channel.** The group appears the moment you choose a comment trigger and disappears if you change it. WhatsApp, SMS, Telegram and Live Chat have no comments at all, so it never appears there. On an **SMS** channel the **Messaging** group shrinks to a text message and the ask-and-wait step. SMS sends one plain body string — no images, no buttons, no quick replies — so the builder only offers what the gateway can deliver. Store steps call the store's API and do nothing without a store connected, which is why they are hidden until one is. The AI step and the Google review request step stay in the palette on every plan, but on a plan without them they cannot be added: selecting one shows *"The AI step isn't included in your plan. Upgrade to use the AI Agent in your automations."* or *"The Google review-request step isn't included in your plan. Upgrade to Reputation & Reviews to use it."* and nothing lands on the canvas. Installing a template that contains one is refused the same way. See [Plans](/billing/plans). ## Message steps still have channel rules The palette cannot catch everything, so the canvas warns you where a step is legal but the content is not: * **WhatsApp:** *"WhatsApp text messages can't carry buttons — use the Buttons Message step."* * **Instagram:** *"Instagram does not support call/webview buttons."* The builder also holds you to the platform's own caps — how many buttons or quick replies a message may carry, how long a WhatsApp body, header, footer or list row may be. ## Publishing and drafts Editing a flow only ever changes its draft. The published version keeps running untouched until you select **Publish**, and publishing immediately opens a fresh draft — so the canvas is always editable and the runs already in progress finish on the version they started on. Publish runs four checks, and stops at the first failure: The flow uses an AI step or a Google review request your plan does not include. Upgrade, or remove the step. You cannot normally add either on a plan without them, so this is a backstop for flows that already contain one. The flow needs a trigger, and at least one step after it. Every step other than the trigger and notes must have something connected into it. Every reply button and every quick reply on a message step must connect to a next step, or publish stops with `Button "Yes" is not connected to a next step.` Each output can have only one line out of it. Every condition must have both its true and false outputs connected, and a find-order step both its found and not-found outputs. A randomizer needs between two and five branches whose weights add up to 100%. A buttons message needs one to three buttons with titles of 20 characters or less; a list message needs one to ten rows. Another **Active** automation on the same channel already answers the same event. If both reply to every message, or both claim the same keyword, the contact would get two replies. Give one a specific keyword, or pause the other, then publish. Publishing activates the automation, so it counts against the limit on active bots per channel. Pause one you are not using. Pausing an automation does not unpublish it — it just stops it being considered. Switch it back on and the same published version runs again. Every matching flow fires, not just the first one. If two **Active** flows on the same channel match the same message, the contact gets both replies. The keyword check only compares against automations that are already active when you publish, so it will not catch a clash you create later by switching a paused flow back on. Check what is already active on a channel before you turn another one on. ## Checking it works The per-node badges on the canvas show how many times each step ran and how many messages it sent — counted from real runs of the published version, so they stay empty until you publish. The automation's analytics page adds runs, completions, failures and a completion rate. Nothing is estimated: delivery and clicks are not tracked per step, so they are not shown. Which events can start a flow, and which are channel-specific. Drafts, versions and going live. Start from a ready-made flow. Why a flow does not fire, or fires twice.