Workflow builder

Context

Tinkoff is a fully online, branch-free financial ecosystem offering banking, investment, 
and lifestyle services through a single digital platform. Customer support is a massive operational effort, requiring highly optimized workflows to handle millions of customer interactions daily across multiple channels (calls, chats, in-app support).

What is workflow

Imagine a client lost their card and messages support. For them, it’s just a quick chat.

But on the bank operator’s side, it’s more complex: they’re usually juggling multiple chats, checking account details, recent updates, and trying to act fast. That’s where workflows come in. A workflow is a built-in flow that guides the operator through solving a request, like freezing a card, answering a trading question, or helping with a canceled flight. They just type a keyword, and the system pulls up the right steps -- smart tool that speeds things up while leaving room for a human touch.

Challenge

At first, we used a third-party tool to guide support agents through step-by-step workflows. But it wasn’t built for our level of complexity. Agents had to jump between screens, copy-paste data into separate admin systems, and repeat actions manually.Most of major userflows were build manually at first. This made client support slow, inconsistent, and expensive to scale. We needed something that could deeply integrate with 10+ internal systems, follow strict security rules, and work inside our existing tools. So we built our own.

Starting point

An early version of a low-code/no-code Workflow Builder allowed non-technical methodologists (support specialists trained to create workflows) to build procedures visually instead of relying on developers.

However, when I joined, this tool was in an early, barely functional state, supporting only 200-300 workflows and lacking critical usability and scalability.

Metrics

To unlock the full potential of the Workflow Builder, our objectives were: to empower non-technical staff to build workflows independently, accelerate deployment and auditing to reduce release times, and improve service efficiency by lowering request handling times and enhancing overall support quality.

Research

I immediately started field research with end-to-end users and identified the main pain points:

— Unintuitive UI: The early version was ‘developer-first,’ requiring complex logic to set up workflows.
— Slow release cycles: No built-in verification process, approvals were entirely manual.
— Lack of feedback loops: No way to track workflow performance or optimization areas.

Cleaning up after research

To kick off the work effectively, I conducted research, prioritized the backlog using the Kano model, and presented the results to the team.

First designs: obvious improvements

I started with the basics: visual order, predictability, and trust. I cleaned up the interface using foundational UX laws like Jakob’s Law (keep it familiar) and Aesthetic-Usability Effect (make it feel smooth and reliable).


We were using PlumbJS for drag-and-drop editing, but interactions were buggy. I partnered closely with engineers to improve visual consistency and interaction feedback, fixing edge snapping, improving latency, and tightening layout logic.

It fixed basics and laid the foundation for everything that followed.

Feature: Error console

After shipping core improvements, I prioritized high-impact UX pain points.

One was error validation: before launching a workflow, users needed to test it, but errors were shown in generic pop-ups with no link to the faulty block. Debugging was frustrating and slow.

I redesigned the experience into a console-style error log (inspired by dev tools), highlighting the exact block and message. Validation time dropped 3x, and power users finally felt in control.

Deleloper handoff

Created comprehensive prototypes for all core features
Maintained detailed interaction documentation and states
Worked directly with devs on incremental delivery and refinement
Testes on each available surface

Feature: Workflow versions comparison

As the number of workflows and updates grew, reviewing them became a pain. Reviewers had to re-check everything, even if only 5% changed, because there was no way to compare versions except as open them in different windows. 
Some authors left notes for reviewers in Slack, some didn’t. It was messy, slow, and error-prone.


I designed a visual diff tool that automatically greyed out unchanged blocks and highlighted updates. Combined with version control and approval tracking, it reduced review time, minimized human error, and helped us ship faster with more confidence.

Other updates

There were plenty of other updates: variable paths, sub-workflows, unused variable, version clean-up, comments, mentions and more. Each should be a standalone case. What matters for me, teams and the company: we shipped everything from must-be and performance backlog backets, solved real pains, and empowered teams to move fast without breaking things.

UX testing

I conducted bi-weekly field UX tests as a simple but consistent discovery loop. I check how people move through the workflow builder using real task scenarios and a think-aloud format. 



I loved that we were literally sitting in one room with all the users of my product in real life -- it felt incredible to watch how the core of the bank was being built on top of something I designed!

Result

What started as a clunky system became a fast, reliable, and collaborative platform. I cleaned up the UI, added error validation, visual diffing for approvals, and a bunch of other updates, all grounded in real user pains.

Business impact

We cut the time to update existing workflows from draft to production by 26%, and launched new workflows 20% faster.

 On average, a new business process now goes live in 66 hours, and updates ship in just 14 hours. These changes significantly reduced operational overhead and enabled faster, safer scaling without increasing headcount.