Build your first flow

Learn how to build a web form to collect contact details and send a confirmation email.

Signicat Mint is a visual, no-code platform for building workflows to automate nearly any process.

In this tutorial, you will create a basic Mint flow that:

1. Collects end-user contact information using a web form.
2. Uses this information to send your end-users a confirmation email.

Workflow overview

1. Create a new flow.
2. Build a web form.
3. Send an email.
4. Save and publish the flow.
5. Run a user journey.

You'll learn how steps and user journeys work and prepare yourself to build more complex flows.

Prerequisites

If you do not have an account already, then you need to sign up to the Signicat Dashboard for free and complete the initial preparations. To do this:

1. Sign up to the Signicat Dashboard and register your profile.
2. Ensure that you have created an organisation.
3. Create an account. To do this:
   1. Go to Signicat Dashboard > Organisation, then select + Add account.
   2. Enter an account name, choose the type of account that you want to create, then select Create.
4. Create a domain. To do this:
   1. Go to Signicat Dashboard > Settings > Domain management, then select + Add domain.
   2. To create a standard domain, enter a domain name. Then, select Add domain.
   3. To create a custom domain, follow the instructions in the Custom domains documentation.

Account types

We recommend that you create a sandbox account to test our services before going live. Sandbox and production accounts must be set up separately.

To use Mint, you don't need to know how to code, use the command line, or install any software.

1. Create a new flow

You create and edit flows in the Mint Builder UI, a visual editor with an infinite canvas where you can drag-and-drop components and connect services to build your flows.

To create a new flow, do the following:

1. In the Signicat Dashboard, go to Products > Signicat Mint.
2. In the left menu, select Builder.
3. Choose Blank.
4. Edit the name of the flow to "Hello, World!".
5. Select Create flow.

Success!

You have just created your first flow. It is now empty so let's add a step.

After you have created a flow, you can add and configure steps.

About steps

Steps are the building blocks of your flows. Each step represents a unit of work executed by the Mint engine to perform an action, such as creating a web form or sending an email. To build your desired flow, you can chain as many steps as you want.

2. Add a web form

The Form step allows you to build and configure a web form. When you start the user the journey, the Form step is rendered as a web form where your end-users can enter and submit data.

To add a Form step with an email input field, do the following:

1. In the Builder UI, select the plus icon (+). Then, select Step to add a new step.
2. In the left "Steps" menu, select Form under the Signicat category.
3. In the left "Elements" menu, select Inputs > Email.

Next, you will use the email address that users submit as an input to send an email.

3. Send emails

The Send email step allows you to send email messages. You can either provide an address or use the values you obtain from previous steps, such as from the Form step above, as input.

To add an Send email step, do the following:

1. In the Builder UI, select the plus icon (+). Then, select Step to add a new step.
2. In the left "Steps" menu, select Send email under Communication.
3. In the input box under To, type + (plus) key to expand the dropdown with all available input data. Select "Form.Email" from the list and select the plus icon (+) outside the input field to add the key.
4. In the "Subject*" text box, enter "Hello, World!".
5. In the "Body*" text box, enter "My first steps with Mint.".

4. Save and publish

After adding a step, it is important to save your flow to prevent losing any progress you made.

You can save a flow by selecting Save at the top right.

Your flow structure should now look like this:

Hello, World!

After you have saved a flow, you are ready to publish it.

Publishing flows

When you publish a flow, Mint generates a public URL where your end-users can start a web-rendered version of the flow — the user journey. After publishing, you can share the URL with your end-users.

How does a user journey look like?

The user journey is the rendered version of your flow and depends on the steps you add.

Mint has two types of steps:

• Interactive steps: Require user activity and are displayed in the user journey. Example: Form.
• Background steps: Run on the server side without user input. Example: Send email.

Remember that only interactive steps are displayed in the user journey.

When you are ready to publish a flow, do the following:

1. At the top right, select Publish. The workflow URL is automatically copied in your clipboard.
2. To copy the URL again, select the More Options icon (more_vert), then Copy workflow URL.

Congratulations!

You have just published your first flow. Now, let's run a user journey to simulate what your end-users would see.

5. Run a user journey

To run a user journey, do the following:

1. Open a tab on your browser and paste the workflow URL.
2. Select Get started.
3. Enter your email address.
4. Select Submit.
5. Open you email. You should have received an email from Signicat with subject "Hello, World!".

Success!

You have just built your first flow and completed a user journey.

Next steps

With Signicat Mint, you can view and manage the outcome of any user journey in the Mint Journeys:

Mint Journeys

Monitor, analyse and access reports of user journeys

To continue your journey with Mint, follow one of our tutorials or learn more about steps:

Tutorials

Get started with user guides tailored to your use case

Steps

Learn about the building blocks of your flows