Workflow Builder

Workflow Builder chains individual Operelio tools into a single pipeline. Upload one file, add the steps you want in order, and the output of each step feeds into the next. The downloading, re-uploading and reconfiguring you would otherwise do between tools happens in one click.

A workflow can have up to 8 steps. The tools you can chain are Clean Headers, Deduplicate, Find & Replace, Filter & Extract, Column Manager, Remove suppressed contacts, and CRM Formatter. You can combine them in any order (with one exception: CRM Formatter always runs last if included).

When you run a workflow, Operelio executes each step on the server, passes the intermediate result to the next step, and returns a single output file at the end. Intermediate files are not kept. Only the final result is saved to your history.

Workflow Builder pays off when you find yourself running more than one tool in sequence on the same file.

CRM import cleanup (four steps). Clean Headers standardizes column names (First Name → first_name). Find & Replace fixes abbreviations ("Inc." → "Inc"). Deduplicate removes repeats by email, keeping the first occurrence. CRM Formatter maps the result to HubSpot's contact fields. Upload one messy export, get a CRM-ready file.

Weekly lead extract (three steps). Filter & Extract keeps only rows where country is "US". Column Manager drops internal columns you don't need outside the team. Set the output format to Excel in the run bar and the result is a formatted spreadsheet you can share directly.

Broad cleanup (five steps). Clean Headers, then Find & Replace to normalize country names, then Find & Replace again to fix status values, then Deduplicate by email, then Filter & Extract to keep only active rows. Find & Replace can be added multiple times, and each instance runs its own set of rules.

When you configure a step that references columns (like Filter & Extract or Find & Replace with a column scope), the dropdown shows the columns that will exist at that point in the pipeline, not the columns in your original file.

Example: your file has "First Name" and "Email Address". Step 1 is Clean Headers, which lowercases headers. When you configure step 2 (Filter & Extract), the column dropdown shows first_name and email_address, not First Name and Email Address. Operelio simulates the transformation client-side so you're always referencing the right names.

The same is true for Column Manager. If you rename, split, or duplicate a column in an earlier step, later steps see the new shape.

Maximum 8 steps per workflow. At the limit, the Add step button gives way to "Step limit reached (8 max)" until you remove a step.

Clean Headers, Deduplicate, Column Manager, Remove suppressed contacts, and CRM Formatter can each appear once per workflow. Find & Replace and Filter & Extract can appear any number of times (they're common enough that you'd reasonably run multiple passes).

If CRM Formatter is included, it always runs as the final step. The builder enforces this when you add it. You can't place it in the middle.

Each step must be a single-file tool. Multi-file tools (Merge Files, Match & Pull Columns, Compare Files) cannot be workflow steps because they require paired inputs. The output of one step always feeds into the next as a single file.

Row-limit rules still apply. On Starter, a workflow processes up to 50,000 rows per step; on Pro, up to 75,000; on Agency, up to 150,000. If your input is bigger, the worker truncates to the plan limit before step 1 runs and shows a banner on the results page.

Workflow Builder is a Starter feature. Every paid plan gets the full feature set; the difference is scale.

Workflows are atomic. If any step fails, the workflow stops at that step and the remaining steps are skipped. You won't end up with a half-processed output.

Here's exactly what happens for each common failure case:

The results page names the step that stopped and why, shows the rows each earlier step read and wrote, and marks the steps after it as not run, so you can see how far the workflow got.

Open the workflow, on the results page, takes you back to the builder with the same file and steps. Fix the step that stopped and run it again. The workflow starts fresh from step 1 every time; there's no partial resume. To keep the fix for next time, save the workflow.

A failed run doesn't count against your monthly job limit. Only completed runs do. If you're worried about burning credits while debugging, use Preview after this step on each step (free, runs on the first 100 rows) to catch configuration mistakes before running on the full file.

Once you have added a step, choose the output format in the run bar: CSV (the default) or Excel (.xlsx). The format applies to the final output file only; intermediate steps always use CSV internally for speed.

If CRM Formatter is your last step, there is no format choice. The run bar says your result will open in the CRM Formatter, where you pick your CRM, map columns and push.

The output file is named after your input. If you upload contacts-raw.csv and run the workflow, the final file is named contacts-raw_workflow.csv (or .xlsx if you chose Excel).

The output file is saved to your job history and stays available for your plan's retention window (30 days on Starter, 30 days on Pro, 90 days on Agency). Download it from the results page, which you can reopen from Activity on Home, at any time during that window.

When the workflow finishes you land on a results page summarizing the run. Here's what each element means:

Once the settings are right for the files you get every week, a trail can run them for you. A trail watches a folder and runs a workflow like this one on every file that lands there, then pushes the result into HubSpot, Salesforce or Pipedrive, with nine always-on safety checks, two more you set, and approval built in. Set it up once and the cleanup, the verification, the lead routing and the CRM import are automated from then on.

Trails run on Starter and above.