Get started with automated flows

Who can use this feature?

• Available for Essentials, Accelerate, and Enterprise.

Use automated flows to quickly test the accessibility of common steps and interactions within a user journey. Assemble a set of actions to navigate through dynamic elements and scan important states along your most common user flows! 

• What is an automated flow?
• What are actions?
• How it works?
• View the list of automated flows for an asset

What is an automated flow?

An automated flow is a set of steps and interactions taken by a user to achieve a goal. For example, searching for a product, adding the product to the basket, and proceeding through checkout. With automated flows, you can test:

• Key user flows.
• Interactive elements.
• Dynamically generated content. 
• Single-page experiences. 

Each flow consists of a series of page states and actions that you can use in an advanced scan.

Note: The platform supports up to 500 actions per automated flow and an unlimited number of automated flows for Accelerate and Enterprise customers.

What are actions?

Actions are an interaction between the user and page. For example, open or click. Actions use user interactions with the applicable CSS selector and/or value of the component.  Learn more about CSS selectors.

How it works?

The scan action on a page triggers the scanning tools to run a scan after a set of actions. Note the following prerequisites:

• Every automated flow needs at least one page scan.
• Each page within the flow should be unique.

For each page, you can include a name, description, and screenshot of the page where the scan takes place. The information helps you to identify where you’re scanning in the automated flow. Once created, pages can be reused for different automated flows.

Note: Pages live at the digital asset level of the platform. All users can access existing pages.

To get started, set up an automated flow.

View the list of automated flows for an asset

To list automated flows associated with a digital asset: 

1. Navigate to the workspace level.
2. Under Workspace, select Digital assets. The Digital asset portfolio is displayed. 
3. Select the digital asset you want to view or create the flow for.
4. Perform one of the following actions: 
   1. Under Manage, select Digital asset settings, and then choose Automated flows -or- 
   2. Select Scans, and then choose Automated flows. 

A new page is displayed, listing all the automated flows for this digital asset.