Workflows
Set Cogram to write a recurring project report from your meeting minutes, emails, and field reports, or to draft an RFI or submittal response when one is filed.
A workflow puts Cogram to work on its own. There are two kinds:
A scheduled report reads the projects you pick and writes a report on a schedule, then emails it to you.
An email-filed draft watches your projects and drafts a response whenever an RFI or submittal email is filed.
Typical uses:
A Monday morning owner update covering last week's meetings and correspondence
A daily brief for the project team on an active site
A month-end summary for each project you run
A draft RFI response, ready the moment an RFI email is filed to a project
Workflows are in Agent → Workflows. What they produce is under Agent → Workflow runs.
Start from a template
When you create a workflow, Cogram offers ready-made templates. Each one fills in the trigger, data sources, prompt, and output for a common job, so you can use it as-is or adjust it. Select Blank workflow to start from scratch instead.
Report templates
These write a report on a schedule.
Weekly Owner Update
Client or owner
A short weekly summary of progress, decisions, and items needing the owner's attention.
Daily Team Brief
Internal team
A morning brief of action items, open questions, and watch items from the last day.
Weekly PM Report
Project manager
A full weekly status report: decisions, action items, risks, and schedule.
Team Lead Weekly Review
Team or discipline lead
A weekly roll-up across all the projects you oversee, grouped by theme, with blockers and where your attention is needed.
Executive Portfolio Brief
Firm leadership
A weekly portfolio read: each project's health, the top risks across the book, and the decisions that need leadership.
RFI & Submittal Log Digest
PM or coordinator
A weekly status of open RFIs and submittals: what's overdue, who owes the next move, and what is aging.
The Team Lead Weekly Review and Executive Portfolio Brief templates report across several projects at once, and come pre-set to Combined report (one report covering the whole set). Switch to Separate reports if you would rather get one per project.
Draft templates
These draft a response when an email is filed. They appear where email filing is enabled for your organization.
RFI Intake
Project team
Drafts a response when an RFI email is filed to a watched project.
Submittal Intake
Project team
Drafts a review response when a submittal email is filed to a watched project.
See Draft RFIs and submittals from filed email.
Creating a workflow
Go to Agent → Workflows and select New workflow.
Choose a template, or select Blank workflow to start from scratch. See Start from a template.
Give the workflow a name.
Work through the steps on the canvas. Select any step to configure it: Trigger, Data sources, Prompt, Report output, and Notifications.
Select Save.
A new workflow is saved as Draft. It does not run until you activate it.
Trigger
The trigger decides what starts the workflow.
Where email filing is available, a Trigger type step offers two choices:
Schedule (generate a report): run on a schedule. Set a Frequency (Daily, Weekly, Every 2 weeks, or Monthly), a Day of week where the frequency needs one, and a Time.
Email filed (draft an RFI/submittal): run whenever a matching email is filed to one of the workflow's projects. Choose the Record type, RFI or Submittal. See Draft RFIs and submittals from filed email.
If email filing is not enabled for your organization, every workflow runs on a schedule and this step shows only the Frequency, Day of week, and Time fields.
Data sources
This step decides which projects the report covers and what it reads.
Under Input projects, choose one of:
Specific projects: pick the projects yourself
Projects I'm an owner of
Projects I'm a member of
Projects I'm an owner or member of
The three role-based options are re-checked on every run, so a project you join later is picked up without editing the workflow. See Choosing input projects below.
Under Include data from, select any combination of Meeting minutes, Emails, and Field reports.
Under Time range, choose how far back each run reads: Last 24 hours, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, or 30 days. Match this to your frequency. A weekly report that only reads the last 24 hours will miss most of the week.
When a workflow covers more than one project, choose a Report mode:
Separate reports: one report per project, sent as separate emails
Combined report: one report covering all projects
Prompt
Write the instructions for the report: what to cover, how to structure it, and who it is for. Be specific about what matters to the reader.
For an owner update, for example, you might ask for progress since the last report, decisions taken, outstanding RFIs, and items awaiting the owner's response.
Report output
Set the Report title. Titles support a date, so a recurring report is easy to tell apart in a list.
Include source references links report sections back to the documents they came from. Leave this on when someone will need to check a statement against the original minutes or email.
Notifications
Turn on Email notification to get an email when the report is ready. The email includes a link to the full report in Cogram.
Draft RFIs and submittals from filed email
Where email filing is enabled, a workflow can draft a response the moment a matching RFI or submittal email is filed, so a first draft is waiting for you instead of a blank page.
Start from the RFI Intake or Submittal Intake template, or create a workflow and set its Trigger type to Email filed (draft an RFI/submittal):
In the Trigger step, choose the Record type: RFI or Submittal.
In Data sources, choose the projects to watch. The workflow runs whenever a matching email is filed to one of them.
In Prompt, set how the draft should read. The template drafts a grounded response that cites project documents; adjust it to your firm's wording.
Save and activate the workflow.
When a matching email is filed, Cogram matches it to an existing RFI or submittal (or creates one) and drafts a response against it. The draft appears as a run under Agent → Workflow runs; open it to review and edit. As with every Cogram draft, check it before it goes out.
Filing only triggers a draft when an active RFI Intake or Submittal Intake workflow is watching that project. Without one, the email is filed as usual and nothing is drafted.
Activating a workflow
A workflow only runs once it is Active, whether it runs on a schedule or on a filed email.
Open the workflow and select Activate. To stop it without deleting it, select Pause. A paused workflow keeps its configuration and stops running.
To test a workflow before you rely on it, select Run now. This runs it immediately against the current data, which is the fastest way to check that your prompt produces what you want.
Choosing input projects
Specific projects is the right choice when the workflow covers a fixed set of projects that does not change.
The role-based options suit people who run many projects and do not want to revisit the workflow every time their portfolio changes. Cogram resolves them fresh on each run, using your project roles at that moment.
Two rules apply to the role-based options:
A workflow covers at most 20 projects. If more than 20 match, Cogram uses the 20 most recently active and tells you in the builder how many were left out.
Dormant projects are left out. A project with no meetings, emails, or field reports in the last 90 days is skipped. A project you created recently counts as active even before anything is filed to it.
The builder shows which projects match right now, so you can check the list before saving. That preview is a snapshot: the projects are worked out again on every run, so the set can change.
Role-based selection follows the roles of the person who created the workflow, not whoever is looking at it. If you open a colleague's workflow, the projects shown are the ones their roles resolve to.
Owner project
Every workflow belongs to a project, shown as its Owner project. This controls who can see and change it:
Members of the owner project can see the workflow and its runs
Owners of that project can edit it
Only the person who created the workflow can move it to another project
Leave the owner project as your Personal workspace to keep a workflow to yourself. Set it to a shared project when the team should see it.
The owner project is separate from the input projects. A workflow can sit in one project and report on others.
Reading the results
Go to Agent → Workflow runs to see every run, its status, and the report or draft it produced.
A run is Completed when the report or draft is ready. Failed means the run did not finish; open it to see the error.
Reports are drafts written by AI. Before sending one to an owner, a client, or a contractor, check it against the source material: names, dates, decisions, action items, numbers, and anything contractual. Keep Include source references on to make that check quick.
Troubleshooting
The report is empty or thin
Likely cause: The time range is shorter than the gap between runs, or the selected data sources hold nothing for the period.
Fix: Widen the Time range to at least cover the interval between runs, and confirm that the projects have meetings, emails, or field reports filed for that period.
A project is missing from a role-based selection
Likely cause: The project has had no activity for 90 days, you do not hold the required role on it, or more than 20 projects matched and this one fell outside the 20 most recently active.
Fix: Check your role on the project under Projects. If more than 20 projects match, switch to Specific projects and pick the ones that matter, or narrow the role you select on.
"Nothing to run" when using Run now
Likely cause: No project currently matches the role-based selection, so there is nothing to report on.
Fix: Confirm you hold the selected role on at least one project with recent activity. Nothing is wrong with the workflow; it will run as soon as a project matches.
The workflow never runs on its own
Likely cause: It is still in Draft or has been Paused.
Fix: Open the workflow and select Activate.
The report does not cover what you asked for
Likely cause: The prompt is too general, or the data source the content lives in is not selected.
Fix: Make the prompt specific about sections and audience, and confirm Include data from covers the right material. Use Run now to test each change.
Next steps
Agent: ask questions across your projects on demand
Projects: project roles and membership
Notification bell: control the emails Cogram sends you
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