Available with any of the following subscriptions, except where noted:
🟢 Starter (up to the plan’s step limit) | 🔵 Builder | 🟣 Optimizer |
⚫ Enterprise
Effectively managing your business processes requires a clear and collaborative view of how your people, tools, and processes connect. Puzzle's Workflows Canvas offers an interactive visual workspace to easily map, track, and optimize workflows in one place.
Whether you're simplifying day-to-day operations or solving complex process challenges, the Workflows Canvas empowers you to visualize interactions clearly, collaborate seamlessly, and continuously refine your processes for maximum efficiency.
Benefits of Using the Workflows Canvas
✨ Visual Clarity: Instantly see and understand your processes through interactive flowcharts.
🤝 Team Collaboration: Enhance teamwork by easily sharing, editing, and discussing workflows in real-time.
🔧 Process Optimization: Identify and resolve bottlenecks quickly, enabling continuous improvement and operational efficiency.
🔗 Flexible Connections: Easily adjust how steps connect by dragging connectors between steps or repositioning them for cleaner, more accurate workflows.
Getting the Most from the Workflows Canvas
The canvas is where your team works every day. The tips below help you move through it faster, find specific steps in seconds, and adjust your view to match how you work.
🧰 Unlock the Power of the Workflow Sidebar
🧰 Unlock the Power of the Workflow Sidebar
The Workflow Sidebar is your hub for quick navigation, streamlined communication, and easy access to workflow details.
📊 At-a-Glance Summaries: Quickly view the total number of sections, steps, and connections in your workflow, giving you immediate insights into your processes.
🗺️ Navigate Efficiently: Jump directly to any section with a simple click.
💬 Streamlined Comments: See all comments across the workspace from the comment tab on the Workflow sidebar. It's where you can find all team discussions, feedback, and collaboration around your workflow's steps.
📈 Workspace Summary Analytics: See the health of your entire workspace at a glance. The sidebar rolls up Step Status Overview (Draft, In Progress, Testing, Live, Archived) and Automation Overview (Person, Automation, AI Agent) across every section and step, so you can instantly see how much of your workspace is automated and where steps stand.
🔎 Find Steps and Navigate the Canvas
🔎 Find Steps and Navigate the Canvas
Navigate and interact with your processes seamlessly through these intuitive features:
🔍 Rapid Step Search: Quickly locate specific workflow steps using the powerful Search Bar.
🎦 Zoom & Interactive Controls: Zoom in for detailed editing or use the Fit View to get an overview of your entire process. For additional navigation tips, including keyboard shortcuts and advanced controls, refer to our Mastering Navigation and Shortcuts in Puzzle guide.
👁️ Work with Step and Section List Views
👁️ Work with Step and Section List Views
👁️ Step & Section List Views for Quick Filtering: The List View displays your workflow in a clean, filterable table — perfect for managing large or complex processes at scale. You can also customize which columns are visible to focus only on the data that matters to you.
🔹 Step View: When in Steps View, you can filter by:
Step Type
Step Status
Executor
Roles
Attributes
Tools
Sections
Tab: Quickly see where each step lives across different workflow tabs.
Use bulk-editing tools to update roles, tools, attributes, and more across multiple steps at once — ideal for updating entire processes or syncing parallel changes.
🔁 Section View Toggle: Switch the List View from steps to a table of sections — perfect for managing workflows at a higher level.
Filter by Tab, Roles involved, Tools used, or Section color
Update section colors directly in the table for fast visual edits
View a complete list of all sections across your workflow tabs
This toggle gives you a powerful way to audit and organize your workflows by section, not just step, helping you manage the big picture with precision.
Customize Your List View: Make your List View work the way you do:
Show or hide columns to focus on the most relevant data (e.g., roles, tools, status, attributes)
Simplify large workflows by removing unnecessary fields from view
Your column preferences are automatically saved per user and per workspace
💡 This allows each team member to tailor their view without affecting others.
Bulk Editing from List View: List View also supports multi-step editing to help you manage large workflows more efficiently.
To edit multiple steps at once:
✅ Select steps using the checkboxes in the first column.
🧰 Use the bulk edit toolbar to update shared inputs like roles, tools, status, or attributes—all in one action.
🔎 Combine filters with bulk edit to speed up updates across current vs. future states or specific tool sets.
📄 Pagination: List View loads 25 steps per page by default. Switch to 100 or 200 per page using the page-size control, and use the page controls at the bottom of the list to jump between pages.
✏️ Easily Edit and Optimize Workflows
✏️ Easily Edit and Optimize Workflows
Keep your workflows accurate and up-to-date effortlessly:
📝 Dynamic Editing: Instantly edit steps, roles, tools, or notes directly within the canvas, with real-time visual updates.
🔀 Flexible Rearrangement: Easily rearrange workflow sections or steps by simply dragging and dropping, adapting your processes quickly.
🔗 Smart Connector Editing: Click and drag connector lines to reconnect them to different steps or reposition where they attach. This makes it easy to update flow logic without deleting and recreating connections.
🧵 Connector Line Styles: Click a connector to set its shape to elbow or curved, and switch the texture between solid or dotted. Mix styles to signal different path types at a glance, for example dotted lines for optional or fallback routes.
💡 Want every new connector to default to a specific shape? Set your preferred default in Workspace Settings → Workflow Settings → Connector Preferences.
🎨 Connector Label Customization: Add labels to connectors and choose label colors to clearly represent different paths, decisions, or relationships within your workflow.
🗂️ Workflow Tabs & Default Views
🗂️ Workflow Tabs & Default Views
Puzzle is constantly evolving to enhance workflow management, and we’ve introduced two powerful features to help you organize and navigate workflows effortlessly:
Organize Workflows with Tabs
Now, you can categorize workflows into separate tabs to keep different processes structured and easy to access. This means:
✔ Less clutter – Group related workflows into dedicated tabs.
✔ Faster navigation – Switch between different workflow categories instantly.
✔ Improved collaboration – Keep teams focused on their relevant processes.
💡 Learn how to maximize this feature in our guide: Mastering Tabs in Puzzle.
Set a Default Workflow Tab for Instant Access
Each user can now set a Default Workflow Tab so they land on their most-used tab every time they open workflows. No more unnecessary clicks—just jump straight to what matters most.
To set your Default Tab:
Open Workspace Settings → Workflow Settings.
Choose a Default Workflow Tab from the list.
Enjoy personalized, faster navigation every time you open Workflows.
Set a Default Connector Style
Choose whether new connectors default to elbow or curved so every connector you draw matches your preference without adjusting it manually each time.
To set your default connector style:
Open Workspace Settings → Workflow Settings.
Under Connector Preferences, choose Elbow or Curved as your default.
Every new connector you draw will use this style automatically.
💡 Elbow is the default out of the box. You can still override the style on any individual connector by clicking it and choosing a different shape.
📥 Export Your Workflow Data
📥 Export Your Workflow Data
Take every step and connector in your workspace outside Puzzle for backup, analysis, or sharing with people who don't have Puzzle access.
📊 Full workflow structure in one file: Every step and every connector, downloaded as a single .xlsx with two sheets.
🔗 Section, tab, and tool context included: Each step row carries its section, tab, and linked tool by name and ID.
🔍 Ready for spreadsheet analysis: Sort, filter, pivot, or run formulas in Excel, Google Sheets, or any .xlsx-compatible tool.
📤 Portable across teams: Send it to teammates, clients, or auditors who don't have Puzzle access.
For the full walkthrough and the complete field list, see Puzzle Data Export.
🔗 Share Your Workflows via Shared Views
🔗 Share Your Workflows via Shared Views
Share specific workflow sections with clients, stakeholders, or collaborators in a read-only view.
🎯 Click the Share button in the top-right corner of the Workflows Canvas.
➕ Create a new Shared View or add to an existing one.
📋 Pick the specific workflow sections you want to include in the view. Shared Views also support content from Teams, Tools, and the People Canvas.
🔗 Share the generated link. Viewers see every step and connector along with related details, read-only.
For the full walkthrough on creating and managing Shared Views, see the Shared Views: Share and Collaborate support article.
🔗 Expanding Workflow Capabilities
To dive deeper into managing specific workflow components, explore our detailed guides:
These comprehensive resources help you master individual workflow features, enabling you to unlock the full potential of the Puzzle platform.
💡 Best Practices & Tips
🗂️ Organize Sections Clearly: Group related workflows into distinct sections within your sidebar for quick navigation.
💬 Engage Through Comments: Regularly utilize the commenting feature to foster team communication and collaboration directly within the workflow.
🎥 Include Rich Media: Embed supporting videos, documents, or links in steps to provide clarity and valuable context for your team.
🔄 Review Regularly: Schedule routine reviews of your workflows to ensure accuracy, efficiency, and continued optimization.
🎯 Use Connector Colors and Positioning: Use colored labels and clean connector placement to visually group related paths, making complex workflows easier to understand at a glance.
Conclusion
Puzzle’s Workflows Canvas provides clarity, collaboration, and efficiency, transforming how your team interacts with business processes. By using these tools and best practices, your organization can seamlessly manage workflows, improve visibility, and foster continuous operational improvement.
Explore and maximize your workflows today, taking your process management to the next level with Puzzle!