Any tool can react to an event. This one waits for the one that never comes.
Most automation is fire-and-forget: something happens, do a thing. A Workroom run can park itself and listen for the future. Send a contract, and the run waits for the signature — for three days. If it never arrives, the timeout branch sends the reminder. Nobody had to remember, and nobody had to check.
←Silent shipment → chase the vendorActive+ Add stepHistorySaved
Three runs no connector could build. Pick one and press play — the canvas is the real builder.
Trusted by the studios doing the work
37 triggers
across leads, projects, products, estimates, invoices, contracts, tasks, forms, receiving and computed thresholds
Wait-for
a run can pause and listen for a later event, with a timeout branch
Plain English
describe the rule and Walter drafts it — you review before it runs
No per-task
not metered by the run, and not another subscription to reconcile
The interesting part
A run that parks itself and listens
Almost every automation product models the world as when this, do that. The useful cases in a design studio are the opposite shape: chase the thing that hasn't happened. A contract nobody signed. An estimate nobody responded to. An invoice nobody paid.
The run starts when the contract is sent.
It parks, waiting for a contract signed event, with a three-day timeout.
If the signature arrives, the run completes quietly and nobody is chased.
If it doesn't, the timeout branch fires and the reminder goes out.
The same backbone that powers every trigger also powers the waiting — which means you can compose behaviors we never specifically built. It's also the foundation for what comes next: triggers that fire on a computed value crossing a line, and on the downstream consequences of one thing slipping. See the roadmap →
1
Contract sentThe run begins
2
Wait for: contract signedTimeout after 3 days
Signed in time
Run completes. No reminder, no nagging a client who already did the thing.
Three days pass
Timeout branch fires. A branded reminder goes to the client, and the studio is notified.
Why not just use Zapier
Generic plumbing doesn't know what an approval is
It's the standard advice, and it's wrong for this trade. A connector can move a row between two apps. It cannot know that a product was approved by the client, that a project moved into documentation, or that an estimate was viewed and then ignored.
The usual way
Zapier · Make · manual reminders
Generic connectors, priced per task
Blind to designs, phases and approvals
Brittle multi-app chains to maintain
Technical setup — or it never gets built
With Workroom
Studio-native, plus Walter
Triggers on projects, leads, contracts, invoices
Delays, branches and wait-for-event gates
Acts on real data: emails, tasks, statuses, leads
Describe it in plain English — Walter builds it
Triggers
Events from the studio, not from a connector
These are the moments a design business actually turns on. Every one of them can start a run, and every one carries its record with it — so the email knows which client, and the task knows which project. The last two groups are the ones a connector cannot reach: they fire on a countdown running out or a computed number crossing a line, not on a row changing.
Leads
Lead created, manually
Lead created from a form
Lead stage changed
Lead status changed
Contracts
Contract sent
Contract viewed
Contract signed
Contract declined
Estimates
Estimate created
Estimate viewed
Estimate approved
Invoices
Invoice created
Invoice paid
Payment made
Projects
Project created
Project phase changed
Project status changed
Products
Product added to project
Product approved by client
Product declined by client
Tasks
Task created
Task assigned
Task status changed
Task completed
Time, team & forms
Time logged
Time threshold reached
Team member added
Contact added
Form submitted
Procurement & receiving
Item received
Delivered on time
Silent shipment
Lead-time drift
Claim window elapsed
Computed thresholds
Install confidence dropped
Change orders vs budget
Allowance overrun
Template library
30 runs already built for this trade
Not "send a Slack message when a row changes." Claim windows that close on you, vendors who go quiet, install dates that stop being true, allowances that quietly drift. Pick one, read what it does, and switch it on.
Automation completed
Every one of these is editable on the canvas — or describe your own and Walter drafts it.
Walter builds it
Describe the rule. Review the draft. Switch it on.
The reason most studios have no automation isn't that they don't want any — it's that building it is a technical afternoon nobody has. So you describe what you want in a sentence, Walter drafts a working automation, and you read it before anything runs.
Nothing runs unreviewed. Walter produces a draft; you enable it.
Or start from a template — thirty of them, from kickoff checklists to claim windows, install confidence and change-order cascades.
Or build it by hand on the canvas, with conditions, delays and branches, then watch it run step by step.
Pause anything, at any time, and see how many times it has run.
⚡
Build an automation with AIDescribe what you want to automate in plain English. Walter drafts it — you review and enable it.
When an estimate is approved, create a project kickoff task and email the client a welcome note.
Or try one of these
Email the client 3 days after an invoice is created if it is still unpaidWhen a contract is sent but not signed within 5 days, remind the clientWhen a new project is created, create an onboarding task and notify the teamWhen a lead comes in from my contact form, notify me and add a follow-up task
CancelBuild draft
The connected record
What a run can actually do
Send a branded email
From the studio's branded address or a connected mailbox, with merge tags for the client, project, invoice or contract — and a form link attached if you want one.
Create and assign tasks
Spin up a whole kickoff checklist against the new project and put each task on the right person.
Move the work along
Set a project's phase or status, or move a lead down the pipeline, without anyone dragging a card.
Notify the right person
The record owner, the studio, or whoever needs to know — on the record rather than in a group chat.
Draft a contract
A lead entering a stage can auto-draft its agreement — always a draft, never sent without a person. Contracts →
Start from a form
A form submission is a trigger like any other, so an enquiry can notify you, create the follow-up and open the lead. Forms →
Questions we hear
Automations, specifically answered
Why not just use Zapier?
Because a generic connector doesn't know what an approval is. It can move a row between two apps, but it can't trigger on a product being approved by a client or a project moving into documentation, and it charges you per task to do the moving. Workroom's triggers are the studio's own events, and the actions operate on the studio's own records.
What does "wait for an event" actually mean?
A run can pause mid-flow and listen for something that hasn't happened yet, with a timeout. Send a contract, wait for the signature, and if three days pass without one, the timeout branch sends the reminder. It's the same engine that handles every trigger — which is why the pieces compose into workflows nobody specifically programmed.
Will it email a client without me knowing?
Only if you built and enabled an automation that does. Walter drafts automations but never enables them; you review first. Everything can be paused, and every automation shows how many times it has run.
Do we need someone technical to set this up?
No. Describe the rule in a sentence and Walter builds a working draft, or start from one of thirty templates — grouped by outreach, task creation, claim windows, shipments and lead time, vendor reliability, install confidence, budget thresholds, client cascades and the lead pipeline. The canvas is there if you want to wire it yourself.
Is it priced per run?
No. It's part of the platform rather than a metered service with a task counter, which is the difference between automating the things worth automating and rationing them.
See the connected workflow
Tell us the thing you keep forgetting to chase.
We'll build the automation for it on the call — in plain English, in about a minute — and you can decide whether to switch it on.
