Workflow columns

A table is a grid of typed columns. Usually you type a column's values in. A workflow column is different: its values come from a workflow that runs once per row. For each row, the workflow reads the columns you choose as input, runs its blocks, and writes its results back into columns on that same row.

This is what makes a table active. Instead of running a workflow by hand and pasting the results in, you attach the workflow to the table and it fills each row on its own — a bit like a spreadsheet macro that runs on every row, except each step is a full workflow.

The running example is a table of AI startups, ai_startup_customers. The company is typed in; three workflow groups fill everything else:

• Company Domain finds each company's domain.
• Company Info reads the domain and fills employee_count and description.
• Lead Score Enrichment runs the lead-scoring workflow and writes lead_score, priority, and score_reasoning.

Each group's header spans the columns it owns, every row has a run button (▷), and the toolbar shows the work in flight: here, 21 running, with Stop all beside it.

domain            │ employee_count │ lead_score │ priority
──────────────────┼────────────────┼────────────┼─────────
openai.com        │ 5K-10K         │ 75         │ Warm
gominimal.ai      │ Not found      │ 92         │ Hot
genspark.net      │ 51-250         │ 20         │ Cold

Two kinds of groups

The unit you configure is a group: something that runs once per row, fed by input columns, writing output columns. There are two kinds, and the + New column menu offers both — Enrichments above the plain column types, Workflow below them. They share all the run machinery that follows.

Enrichments

An enrichment is a built-in lookup that Sim provides and maintains — browse the Enrichments panel for what's available. Pick one, bind its inputs to columns, and name the columns its outputs should fill; there's no workflow to build. Under the hood an enrichment tries a cascade of data providers in order, which is why a cell can come back Not found: every provider ran and none had the answer.

Workflow groups

A workflow group runs one of your own workflows per row — use it when the per-row work is something you've built, like the lead scorer. Its Configure workflow panel holds everything that defines it, with a preview of the workflow it will run:

• Workflow picks which workflow runs per row; here, Lead Score Enrichment.
• Add column inputs maps columns to the workflow's inputs, which arrive at its Start trigger.
• Output columns picks which workflow outputs to write back; here, 3 are selected.
• Auto-run workflow and Run after control when rows run (both below).

One group can produce several result columns from a single run per row: Lead Score Enrichment fills lead_score, priority, and score_reasoning together.

How groups run

Everything from here applies to both kinds. A group's configuration is a set of bindings: each input is bound to a column, and each output is bound to the column name it writes. Here, Company Info's required Company domain input reads the domain column, and its outputs write employee_count_0 and description:

When a group runs a row, the bound column values become its inputs; it only sees the columns you mapped, the rest of the row is untouched, and inputs are read-only during the run. Every output you selected is written to its column, and outputs you didn't select are discarded.

Run after

Run after is the set of columns that must be filled before the group runs on a row. Company Info runs after domain: a row with an empty domain waits, and the moment Company Domain fills it, that row becomes eligible. Lead Score Enrichment runs after the info columns, the six dependencies in the panel above.

A dependency can be a typed column or another group's output column. That second case is what makes cascades work (below). At least one dependency is required when auto-run is on.

Auto-run

Auto-run decides whether a group fires on its own. With auto-run on, a group runs a row as soon as that row's Run-after columns are filled, no click needed; that's how 21 rows end up running at once in the example. With it off, you trigger it yourself.

You trigger a group by hand from its column header menu:

• Run this row runs the one row.
• Run all rows runs every row, and re-runs rows that already finished.
• Run empty rows runs only rows whose output columns are still empty.
• Run selected rows runs the rows you've checked.

Auto-run only ever runs rows it hasn't attempted yet. To re-run a single row, use Re-run cell from the cell's menu; to re-run everything, use Run all rows.

Execution status

While a group works a row, its output cells show their state instead of a value:

When a value arrives, it replaces the badge, and cells that finish stay filled even while other columns on the row are still running. You can see this in the example table: most rows are fully scored, while a few show Not found where an enrichment came up empty. The lead scorer still ran on those rows, working with what it had.

Inspecting a row's run

Every value in a workflow column comes from a real workflow run, and each one is inspectable. Open a cell's menu to act on that row:

View execution opens the run's trace: each block with its status, timing, and credit cost, the same view as the Logs page. Here, the row's score came from a 1.86s run of the LeadScorer workflow:

Re-run cell runs the group again for just that row, replacing its values when the run finishes.

Cascades

Because a group can run after another group's output column, you can chain groups across the table — enrichments and workflow groups freely mixed. The example is a three-stage cascade: Company Domain fills domain from the company name, Company Info runs after domain and fills the info columns, and the Lead Score workflow group runs after those and writes the score. Each row advances through the stages independently: the moment its own Run-after columns are filled, it becomes eligible for the next group. That's why some rows in the screenshot are fully scored while others are still mid-pipeline.

When to use a workflow column

Reach for a workflow column when you have a row-by-row job: enrich each record, classify each entry, score each lead. The work is the same shape on every row, and you want the results to live next to the source data.

Use a workflow on its own instead when the job isn't per-row: a one-off transform, an aggregation across many rows, or a real-time decision tied to a single request. To pull table data into a workflow rather than push workflow results into a table, see using tables in workflows.

Next