Welcome to Workflows!
Arbor Workflows is a workflow and automation platform designed to make life easier for Multi Academy Trusts (MATs) and Schools. Instead of getting buried in emails, paper forms, and repeated admin tasks, Arbor Workings helps you create smart, consistent workflows that free up time for what matters most: supporting students and staff.
This guide is designed for new users and will walk you through everything from logging in, adding users, and setting up roles and building workflows. By the end, you’ll be confident in navigating the platform and ready to build your first automated process.
What is Arbor Workflows?
At its core, Arbor Workflows is about simplifying operations.
- Workflows: Create step-by-step processes (like onboarding a new teacher) that ensure tasks are completed consistently.
- Forms: Collect information securely from staff, parents, or applicants.
- Roles: Maintain a single, central source of truth for key roles and contacts across your Organisation.
- Integrations: Create Workflows to reduce manual data entry to your Arbor MIS.
- Assets: Build your bank of files and links for reference in your workflow.
For Trusts, instead of building separate workflows for each school within your Trust, Arbor Workflows can tell where a workflow is being run and automatically bring in the right people. This makes it scalable across an entire Trust.
Permissions
Arbor Workflows has its own Permission Set which is managed via your Arbor MIS.
By default, we use Arbor Business Roles in the MIS to provision a default set of Arbor Workflows permissions. All Users will see the 'Arbor Workflows' button in the MIS, but not all Users will be able to manage or create Workflows without the correct permission set. If you use bespoke permission sets in your MIS, you will need to review these to ensure the correct users have the correct permissions in Arbor Workflows. Please see further information in this article: School MIS and MAT MIS Business Roles and Arbor Workflow Permissions.
Logging In
Once you have been set up or have transitioned onto a new 2026 package, you can login and start using Workflows. There are two ways in which you can do this:
Directly from your MIS:
Head to the Arbor Workflows dashboard -
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On school sites, the navigation is School > Arbor Workflows.
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On Trust sites, the navigation is Administration > Arbor Workflows > Dashboard.
From here, you have some options to launch the Arbor Workflows area. You can select 'Create new workflow', select a workflow from the list or select 'Launch MyThings'.
Managing Users
User Roles Explained
Arbor Workflows uses roles to control permissions.
The permissions a user has will be aligned to their Arbor Business role. You can find more information about this here: Arbor Roles. An overview can also be found here: School MIS and MAT MIS Business Roles and Arbor Workflow Permissions.
An organisation can also utilise Custom Roles.
School Settings
The Organisation Settings area is the engine room of Arbor Workflows. This is where you:
- Define custom roles.
- Build your asset library
- Configure integrations.
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Set permissions and manage settings.
To access:
From the homepage, click the account icon in the top right.
Select Settings → School Settings.
From here, you’ll start building the foundation of your workflows.
Roles
One of Arbor Workflows super powers is its ability to use contextual information. Instead of making different workflows for the same process but with differing recipients, you can define roles once, and Workflows automatically bring the correct person into each process.
For example:
A “Headteacher” role can be assigned individually for each school.
A “CFO” role might apply centrally across a Trust or Group.
This means that when a workflow runs, Workflows knows who to notify, depending on the school.
Creating a Role
Go to Settings → School Settings → Roles.
You will see the options for 'Arbor Role' and 'Custom Role'
Custom Roles
Are roles that can be assigned to a user either in addition to the Arbor Roles, or instead of. Both can be used within workflows. A reason to create or use a custom role over an Arbor Role is when someone has a set of tasks/responsibilities that you may want to make more visible for workflow building purposes that may be outside of their 'job' title. This could be roles such as 'Health and Safety Lead', PTA co-ordinator or Sports coach, for example.
Custom Roles can be created at the School or Group level. A school level roles means that if within a group or Trust that role would require input for every school listed. If a Group role. That would mean that even if a group of schools or a trust, the same person would be attached to every school within that organisation.
To create a Custom Role:
Select 'Custom', then the 'Add Custom Role button.
This will open an overlay to input the Name, Description and Type of Role (group or school)
Input the details needed and select create.
This will create the Custom Role, and you will see it appear in your list. Select the name of the role to start adding the emails for the users as appropriate. You can then assign the correct contact details (email addresses) to each role.
You will also see an Arbor Roles option on your settings and this is governed by your business roles within the MIS. You can find out more information here: Arbor Roles.
Arbor Roles
In Arbor Workflows, Arbor Roles will show you the Arbor business roles that have synced from your MIS which you can then use as Tags in your Workflows when building them. Where a role can be used, and it matches the recipient for carrying out a Task in a workflow, or receiving a message in a workflow, then it makes sense to use an Arbor Role rather than a Custom Role.
You will need correct Permissions that allow you to 'Administer Assets and Custom Roles' to be able to see Arbor Roles.
Create new workflow
Selecting a workflow from the list
Once you have selected the workflow from the list a slide-over will appear so you can select which action to take. From here you can edit the workflow or track the workflow's activity.
The 'Edit workflow' button will take you to the workflow editor for that workflow.
The 'Track workflow activity' button will take you to the 'Activity' page for that workflow.Launch MyThings
Select the launch MyThings button.
Emails will come from admin@workflows.arbor.education, and we recommend ensuring this email address is whitelisted to avoid essential communication going to spam.
Building Workflows
Automating manual processes is at the heart of Arbor Workflows. Workflows allow you to create repeatable processes that are consistent, efficient, and trackable.
Example Workflows
- New Staff Onboarding → collect starter forms, notify HR, create a staff record in Arbor.
- Absence Reporting → submit absence forms, notify line managers, log absence in Arbor.
- Policy Sign-off → distribute policies and track who has read and confirmed them.
You can build from scratch or start from a template in our library.
Trigger Forms
Nearly all workflows begin with a form. This is where staff (or external users) enter the information needed to kick things off.
When setting up a form, you can configure:
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Access:
- Internal only (Trust/School staff).
- Open access (anyone, such as parents).
- Tracked Access Links: Each school/organisation gets its own unique link to ensure data is routed correctly.
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Summary PDFs: Option to auto-generate a PDF of each completed form for record-keeping.
Best Practices for a Smooth Experience
- Use Google Chrome on a desktop/laptop at 100% zoom for the best experience.
- Start small: build one or two workflows first to completion, then expand as your confidence grows.
- It can be helpful to map out your process on paper prior to building to identify the building blocks that could help, the process flow and the most manual areas.
- Ensure any assets are uploaded into the settings area before running your workflow.