Autonomous Workflows & Styled Document Generation
Learn how to configure background workflows that create polished reports, spreadsheets, and documents for your team.
Autonomous Workflows & Styled Document Generation
In complex business environments, chat is not always the best interface. Sometimes you need background digital workers that can review information, prepare summaries, and create executive-ready spreadsheets or Word documents while you focus elsewhere.
Anakin workflows let your agents run repeatable tasks on demand or on a schedule, then deliver polished outputs directly to your inbox.
1. How Workflows Work
A Workflow is a set of multi-step, autonomous instructions assigned to a specialized agent. Unlike standard conversational chats, workflows execute asynchronously in the background.
| Stage | What Happens |
|-------|--------------|
| Trigger | You run the workflow manually or set a schedule |
| Research | The agent gathers the information it needs |
| Analysis | The agent organizes findings into a useful structure |
| Formatting | Anakin prepares the report, spreadsheet, or document |
| Delivery | The finished output appears in your Global Inbox |
Reliable Background Work
- Runs outside the chat flow: The task can continue while you keep working elsewhere.
- Clear status updates: Progress appears in the workflow panel and inbox.
- Owner control: Pausing, editing, or deleting a workflow changes what runs next.
2. Setting Up a Workflow
Configuring a background worker takes less than two minutes:
1. Select an Agent in the Agent Builder dashboard.
2. Go to the Workflows tab.
3. Click Create Workflow.
4. Define the Trigger Type:
- Manual: Trigger on-demand with one click.
- Hourly: Triggers autonomously every hour.
- Daily: Triggers once a day at a scheduled hour (e.g.,
daily_at_08). - Start & End (optional): Set a start so the workflow waits until then, and/or an end so it stops automatically. Leave both empty to start immediately and run forever.
5. Write the Instruction Prompt (e.g., "Perform a daily analysis of our lead conversion numbers, format them in a table, and compile an elegant Excel sheet.")
3. High-Quality File Generation
Workflows can create polished documents without making visitors or owners wait inside a chat thread.
- Spreadsheets: Great for lead lists, scorecards, pipeline summaries, and operational tables.
- Word documents: Great for proposals, weekly reports, summaries, and client-ready writeups.
- Inbox delivery: Finished files are delivered as Deliverables or Reports in your Global Inbox.
4. Premium Document Styling & Layouts
A primary issue with AI-generated documents is that they can look generic. Anakin helps by applying clean, professional document styling automatically:
Premium Excel Spreadsheet Styling
When you ask Anakin to generate an Excel file, it applies professional touches:
- Header Blocks: Automatically adds solid headers with high-contrast bold white text.
- Harmonious Palettes: Avoids generic colors and uses restrained business-ready color systems.
- Zebra Striping: Alternates white and subtle light-gray rows for readability.
- Double Borders: Adds a clean double-underline bottom border for data summation rows.
- Auto-Spacing Columns: Adjusts column widths so text remains readable.
Elegant Word Document Layouts
When generating Word documents, Anakin formats the output with clean layout rules:
- Stylized Page Headers: Adds custom headers displaying the filename and a matching theme divider line.
- Theme Margins: Supports "elegant" versus "standard" margins (e.g., wider margins for letters/proposals vs compact margins for reports).
- Automated Footers: Seamlessly injects a clean footer with automatic page numbering ("Page X of Y").
5. Structured Action Example
When writing a workflow instruction prompt, you can direct the agent to compile specific datasets. For example:
``markdown
Analyze our sales conversion results from this week and create a styled Excel sheet with:
1. Columns: Date, Visitor Name, Agent Used, Lead Category, Value, Status.
2. Underneath, compile a Word proposal using the 'elegant' layout outlining the summary.
``
The agent will prepare the tables, apply the professional styling rules, compile the assets, and deliver the ready-to-use downloads directly to your Inbox.
Next Steps
- Build a Weekly Reporter - Configure an employee with access to the Lead Database and schedule a daily workflow to summarize inbound leads.
- Review Deliverables - Check your Global Inbox where all compiled Excel and Word reports are delivered. You can permanently delete or resolve old files anytime.