A Step by Step Guide to Using Workflow Manager

1. Navigate to Workflow Manager

Navigate to https://workflow.contextualize.us.com/ directly, or access Workflow Manager through the Portal.

Enter your username and password, then click Sign In.

3. Select a Project (if prompted)

If you see the Select Project screen, your account has access to multiple projects. Workflows are scoped per-project, so the project you choose determines which schemas and existing workflows are available to you.

a. Click the arrow next to Select Project
b. Choose your desired project from the dropdown.

4. Create a New Workflow Template

A template captures the structure of a process — the steps, the order, and what kind of form fills each step. You build a template once and reuse it whenever you start a new experiment that follows the same protocol.

a. Open the template editor

Click New Workflow (or equivalent) and choose to create a template. The empty canvas opens, ready for you to add nodes.

b. Add a schema node

A schema node represents a step in your process that is waiting to be filled in as a form.

i. Open the Schema Selector panel.
ii. Choose a schema from the list — this defines the form for this step.
iii. The node appears on the canvas with the schema's title.

c. Add another node and connect them

i. Add a second schema node by repeating step b.
ii. Draw an edge between the two nodes — this defines the order of execution and the lineage relationship between steps.
iii. Repeat for each additional step in your process, connecting nodes as needed.

d. (Optional) Mark a node as inactive

A node can be active (part of the current execution path) or inactive (context only — visible in the graph for lineage purposes, but not run as part of the workflow). Mark a node as inactive when you want to capture surrounding context without including it in the active slice of work.

e. Name and save the template

Give the template a descriptive name and click Save. The template is now stored as a reusable blueprint and can be instantiated whenever you start a new run of this process.

5. Create an Instance from a Template

An instance is one real run of a template with actual data. The graph shape is the same as the template, but each step is ready to be filled in with a submitted form.

a. Open the saved template

i. Open the saved template from your list of templates, or navigate directly to it by URL.
ii. The template's node graph appears on the canvas.

b. Choose "Create Instance"

Choose the action to create a new instance from this template.

c. Give the instance a name

Enter a descriptive name for this instance, such as Run 2026-06-25 — Batch 12. The name helps you and your team distinguish one run of the protocol from another.

d. The instance opens with the same node graph

The instance opens with the same nodes and edges as the template. Each schema node is now ready to be filled in as a form as the experiment progresses.

6. Submit a Form Within the Instance

Day to day, this is how researchers interact with Workflow Manager: open an instance, click a schema node, and fill in the form for that step.

a. Click a schema node in the instance canvas

Click a schema node on the canvas. The Form Selector (or form panel) opens, displaying the form defined by that node's schema.

b. Fill in the form fields

i. Fill in the form fields. The form-rendering experience is the same as Collections — text, number, date, dropdown, and file-upload fields all behave consistently across the Carta platform.
ii. If a field is required and left empty, you will see a validation message when you attempt to submit.

c. Submit the form

Click Submit. The form is validated against its schema, persisted in FormsDB, and the node updates from a schema-referencing node to a form-referencing node — the node now references a submitted form rather than just a schema.

d. Repeat for additional schema nodes

Continue filling in nodes as the experiment progresses. As each form is submitted, the corresponding node transitions from a schema node to a form node, building up the concrete lineage of this run.

7. Return Home or Sign Out

Click the Carta logo or the Workflow Manager title in the top-left to return to your project home or the list of workflows.
Click your username in the top right, then select Sign Out to end your session.

See Workflow Manager Overview for a general introduction to Workflow Manager.