Workflow recipe: Automated interview

Need to create an automated interview, where each question is dripped out after the respondent answers the previous question?  That's possible using workflows.

In this Workflow Recipe, we'll show you exactly how to set this style of automated interview.  This same tutorial might also be used to create an interactive quiz or training exercise.

Looking for the detailed reference docs for Workflows?  That's here.

Goals for this workflow

Here's what we want to achieve with this workflow:

• We're going to create a 4-question interview and save our 4 questions as templates in our library.
• When the respondent starts the interview, they should only see the first question.
• The 2nd question should display only after the respondent has posted their response to the 1st question.  The 3rd question should display after the student has responded to question #2, and so on through all 4 interview questions.

How to set it up:

Let's walk through the setup, step-by-step:

Step 1:  Create 4 questions as message templates in your library

You'll want to start by creating your 4 interview questions as 4 message templates in your library.

There are 2 ways to create a message template:

• Recommended:  Click "Library", then click "New message template", then create and save a message template.
• Alternatively:  Create a new conversation > Create your first question as a message > Open this message's settings menu > click "Create a template..." to turn this message into a message template in your library.

Step 2:  Create a workflow on the first question's message template

After you've created 4 message templates for your 4 interview questions, now you'll want to go into each of them and add a workflow.  We'll start by creating the workflow on the message template for question #1:

Go to your library and view your message template for question #1.  Click "..." to open its settings menu, then click "Create workflow".

Select the trigger for this workflow to be when this message is viewed.

Since we only want this workflow to run once (to display the next lesson for this student), we can leave the "frequency" setting set to its default setting, which is "Only once".

Now you can go ahead and click "Create Workflow".

Step 3: Add a step to display the next lesson's video

Now click "Add step" to add the first (and only) step in this workflow.  

This step will be the action that automatically displays the next lesson (in this case, less #2) after this workflow was triggered by a person viewing lesson #1.

Set the "step type" to "Send a reply in this conversation"

Then for "Message type", select "Use a message template".  Select the message template you created for lesson #2.

If you want the next lesson to display immediately after the student has played the previous lesson, then you can skip this step, leaving the "Delay" setting set to "Immediately".

Alternatively, if you want the student to wait, say, 1 week before they can see the next lesson, click "Delay", then select "period of time" and set it to 1 week (or whatever time period you want).

Now we're finished creating the workflow for lesson 1, which will display lesson 2 after lesson 1 has been viewed.

Step 5: Create workflows on lessons 2 and 3

Next, we're going to repeat the above steps to create similar workflows on our message templates for lessons #2 and #3.

Again, on each of those message templates:

1. Create a workflow
2. Set it's trigger to "Message viewed"
3. Create a step in the workflow
4. Set the step type to "Send a reply in this conversation"
5. Set the message type to "Use a message template
6. Select the message template.

When setting up the workflow on lesson #2, you'll want to select the message template for lesson #3 (so that viewing lesson #2 causes lesson #3 to display).

When setting up the workflow on lesson #3, you'll want to select the message template for... you guessed it... lesson #4 (so that viewing lesson #3 causes lesson #4 to display).

Step 6:  Create a course and share it with student(s)

Now that your lesson templates and the workflows are all set up, you're ready to deploy them in a course and share the course with student(s).

There are a few different ways you can go about this:

• Create this course as a Program, which can be run repeatedly with multiple students.
• Set up an intake page, where anyone can submit a message to "request" a copy of your course, which will generate a new conversation, which can then automatically trigger lesson 1.
• Create a one-off conversation, insert lesson 1, then share it with a single student.

For simplicity, we'll cover the 3rd option here:  Creating your course as a one-off conversation, inserting lesson 1, then sharing with a single student:

1. Create a conversation
2. Create the first message and select "Library", then select your message template for Lesson 1, then post that message in the conversation.  It has its workflow already built in and ready to run.
3. Share the conversation with a student:  Click "Share" > "Email" > send to your student's email address.

And there you have it!  A fully interactive course that drips each lesson out in sequence as a student views each lesson.

You can build on this further and even create course "modules" by using threads, and turning entire threads (with multiple videos) into thread templates.  Lots of ways you can create learning paths here...