Publishing and versions

Workflow templates have a draft (what you're editing) and one or more published versions (what your staff actually run). This page explains how saving, publishing, and switching between versions work on the canvas.

Save as draft vs Publish

Two buttons sit in the top-right of the canvas. They look similar but do different things:

• Save as draft -- saves the current canvas to the database as your draft. The template exists, but it's not live yet. Your staff don't see it on their mobile app, and no workflow runs are produced from it
• Publish -- marks the current draft as live. From this point on, future workflow runs use the new version. The template appears on your staff's mobile app the next time the trigger fires

Use Save as draft when you want to pause and come back later. Use Publish when the workflow is ready for your team to start using.

Auto-save in the background

You rarely need to click Save as draft while you're working. The canvas auto-saves into your draft every few seconds in the background, every time you make a change. There's no save button to remember and no chance of losing work to a closed tab.

The header bar shows a save-failed message if something goes wrong (a network blip, for example), with a retry button. Most of the time you'll never see it — saves are silent.

The Save as draft button is still useful when you want to be sure everything is saved right now, for example just before you walk away from the screen.

Validation and the disabled Publish button

The Publish button is greyed out while validation fails. The most common reasons are:

• A required field is empty (the template Name, the Tag, the Teams, or a required field inside one of the steps)
• A step has been dropped onto the canvas but not connected with a line — Pilla can't tell where it fits in the workflow

Steps that have a problem show a red border on the canvas. Fix the red borders and the button becomes active again.

The button is also briefly disabled while auto-save is still flushing the latest change to the database. Wait a moment and try again.

The version dropdown

Once you've published a template at least once, a version dropdown appears in the top-right of the canvas. It shows:

• Your current draft (if it differs from the active published version)
• Every published version, newest first, marked with a version number like v1, v2, v3
• A label on the version that is currently live

Selecting your draft puts you back into edit mode. Selecting any older published version opens it in read-only mode.

Read-only mode for older versions

When you open an older version, the canvas locks it. You can pan, zoom, and look at every step, but you can't change anything. The Save as draft and Publish buttons are replaced with a single Restore this version button.

Clicking Restore this version copies the older version's contents back into your draft. You can then keep tweaking, and publish when you're ready. Restoring doesn't immediately go live — it just gives you the older content as a starting point in your draft.

What happens to runs already in progress

When you publish a new version, in-progress workflow runs are not disturbed:

• Runs that have already started stay on the version they were created with. Your staff can finish them with no surprises
• New runs (anything that fires after the publish moment) use the new version

This means you can publish freely without worrying about pulling the rug out from under someone halfway through a checklist.

The unsaved-canvas safety net

Brand-new templates that you've never saved keep an extra backup in your browser. If you close the canvas accidentally, or the browser crashes, the work isn't lost.

The next time you start a new canvas, a banner appears at the top with two buttons:

• Resume -- brings your unsaved work back into the canvas
• Discard -- starts with a blank canvas and throws the backup away

The backup is cleared automatically once you've successfully saved the template (with either Save as draft or Publish).

Tips

• If Publish is greyed out and you can't tell why, scan the canvas for any red-bordered steps. Hover the step to see what's missing.
• Wait a second or two between editing and clicking Publish. The button briefly disables itself while auto-save is finishing the last change.
• Older templates that were built before the current canvas system open in read-only mode and can't be auto-saved or republished. You can still see them, but you'd need to rebuild them on the canvas to change them.
• How many old versions are kept depends on your plan. Enterprise keeps unlimited history; smaller plans keep a fixed number and roll older versions off as new ones are published. The dropdown shows your plan's retention at the bottom.