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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.