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. What would normally take five or ten minutes of downloading, re-uploading, and reconfiguring 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 .xlsx in the sidebar 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. An accuracy warning appears when you have 5 or more steps, since longer workflows can stack small errors and take more processing time. You can dismiss the warning with the X in its top-right corner; it reappears if you remove a step and add another that crosses the threshold again.

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 Pro, a workflow processes up to 50,000 rows per step; on Team, 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 Pro 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 shows which step failed, the error message from that step, and the steps that were skipped as a result. Successful earlier steps are recorded in the summary so you can see how far the workflow got.

Fix the failing step's configuration and rerun. The workflow starts fresh from step 1 every time; there's no partial resume. If you saved the workflow before running, your fix updates the saved version on save; otherwise the fix only applies to this run.

Failed runs still count as one job against your monthly limit. If you're worried about burning credits while debugging, use the Preview button on each step (free, runs on the first 100 rows) to catch configuration mistakes before running on the full file.

Choose your output format in the sidebar before running: .csv (default) or .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, the output is always CSV (matches what CRM platforms expect for imports). The .xlsx option is hidden in that case.

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 Pro, 30 days on Team, 90 days on Agency). Download from the results page or from /app/jobs 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: