Organization vs personal workflows and who can manage them
Understand workflow scope in SAMI OS and which permissions let users edit, publish, or delete shared workflows.
Every workflow has a scope — Organization or Personal — that you choose when you create it. Scope decides who can see the workflow and who is allowed to edit, publish, or delete it.
Organization vs personal scope
When you create a workflow, SAMI OS asks "Who can use this workflow?" and offers two choices:
- Organization workflow — shared with your whole org. Anyone who has permission to manage organization workflows can open it, edit its steps, publish it, or delete it.
- Personal workflow — yours alone. Only you can see it and edit it. On your Workflows list, personal workflows carry a Personal badge so they're easy to spot.
Scope is set at creation and frames everything that follows: an org workflow is a team asset, while a personal one stays private to its creator. For the full creation flow, see create your first workflow.
If you can only manage your own workflows, SAMI OS skips the scope question and creates a Personal workflow for you automatically. The "Who can use this workflow?" dialog only appears for users who can manage organization workflows.
Who can manage org workflows
The right to edit, publish, or delete an Organization workflow comes from a single permission: the ability to manage organization workflows. Owners, admins, and SAMI OS staff have it; other roles may not. Managing a Personal workflow always requires being its creator.
Open your Workflows list
Go to Workflows. You'll see every org workflow plus any personal workflows you created.
Check the scope and badge
Personal workflows show a Personal badge next to their status. Anything without that badge is an org workflow shared with your team.
Look for the edit and delete controls
If you can manage a workflow, its card shows the pencil (edit) and trash (delete) icons, and its checkbox can be selected for bulk actions like Set to Active or Set to Draft.
Open the workflow to edit
Click a card you can manage to open it in the builder, where you can change steps, publish, or pause it. Manage status from the workflow itself — see manage workflow status.
Why some workflows look read-only
If you don't have permission to manage organization workflows, shared org workflows still appear in your list so you know what's running — but they're read-only. Their edit and delete icons are hidden and their selection checkbox is disabled, so you can't accidentally change a teammate's automation.
To get edit access, ask an owner or admin to update your role. Role and permission changes happen under Members in Settings. Once you have the manage-organization-workflows permission, every shared workflow becomes fully editable — and you'll also see the scope choice when you create new ones.
Use Personal scope for experiments and one-off sequences you don't want teammates editing. Promote a proven flow to the whole team by rebuilding it as an Organization workflow so anyone with management permission can maintain it.
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Last updated 2026-06-21