Hi Box Community! 👋
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our "Build Your First Agentic Workflow: A Hands-On Workshop" office hours session on September 22nd! We had a fantastic turnout with some really thoughtful questions and great energy in the room. Whether you were a first-timer or a seasoned builder, we hope you walked away with something valuable.
Below is a full recap of the questions asked, both pre-submitted and live, organized by topic so it's easy to find what matters most to you. We've also included links to Box University training resources to help you keep the momentum going!
Poll Highlights — What You Told Us
Before we dive into the Q&A, here's a snapshot of what the community shared during our live polls:
Where do you see the biggest opportunity for AI agents?
- End-to-end process automation — 50%
- Understanding content — 43%
- Generating content — 36%
- Making decisions / classifications — 29%
- Taking actions — 29%
What type of workflow are you most interested in building?
- Intake → routing → action — 62%
- Contract / legal processes — 54%
- Document review / analysis — 38%
- Employee / HR workflows — 23%
- Other — 8%
What's your biggest challenge?
- Designing the workflow — 45%
- Getting the agent to behave reliably — 36%
- Knowing what to automate — 9%
- Getting users to adopt it — 9%
- Connecting to other systems — 0%
These results tell us a lot. Most of you are excited about automation but are still working through the design and reliability challenges. Great news: those are exactly the topics we covered!
Q&A Recap
Category 1: Box Automate Fundamentals
Q1: What's the difference between Box Automate and Box Relay?
We took a new and upgraded approach towards variables, conditional logic, branching, and integrations within and outside the Box ecosystem with Box Automate. Automate is a complete redesign of the workflow builder that builds on what we learned with Box Relay with added capabilities focused on agentic workflow automation, an intuitive builder UI, conditional routing, parallel branching, and more.
With Box Automate, you find the same set of existing triggers and outcomes as in Relay today, plus, depending on your plan, new Agentic outcomes like Metadata Extract and Agentic Outcomes.
Q2: Can you have multiple triggers on a single workflow?
Not yet. Currently each workflow supports a single trigger. However, this is actively being worked on by the product team, so stay tuned for updates! In the meantime, a common workaround is to create separate workflows for each trigger scenario and design them to converge at a shared step or folder, which would then kick off another workflow.
Q3: Can a workflow be triggered by a Box Report running or completing?
Yes, with a bit of creativity. If your Box Report is configured to drop its output into a specific folder, you can use that folder as a trigger for your workflow. The team is also working on the ability to listen to an entire folder tree (not just a single folder), which will make this even more powerful.
Q4: Can we create Box Automate templates, similar to Relay templates?
This is on the roadmap! The team is working on workflow templates as well as the ability to use natural language prompts to generate workflows, so you'll be able to describe what you want to automate and have a workflow scaffolded for you. Very exciting stuff coming!
Q5: Can you export or import workflows between tenants?
Also on the roadmap! This is a highly requested feature, especially for organizations managing multiple Box environments. No timeline to share yet, but it's being tracked.
Q6: Is there version history for Box Automate workflows?
Not yet. Version management for workflows is not currently available, but it is on the roadmap. For now, it's a good practice to document your workflow configurations externally (e.g., in a Box Note) before making significant changes.
Q7: Does each workflow execution have a unique tracking ID?
Yes! Each workflow execution has a unique tracking ID that appears in the URL when you're viewing that execution. This is really helpful for debugging and auditing specific runs.
Q8: Can you duplicate a Box Automate workflow?
Duplication is on the roadmap as well. It's a commonly requested feature for teams who want to create variations of an existing workflow without starting from scratch.
Category 2: AI Agents — Extract, Outcome & Best Practices
Q9: What's the difference between the Default Extract Agent and a Custom Extract Agent? When should I use each?
This is one of the most important distinctions to understand when building with Box Automate:
- Default Extract Agent: Use this when you want to extract data from a document and use those values as variables within your workflow (e.g., routing based on a contract value, populating a form field). The extracted data lives inside the workflow execution.
- Custom Extract Agent: Use this when you want to extract data and save it as metadata directly onto the file beyond the scope of the workflow. This is the right choice when you need that metadata to persist, be searchable, or be used by other systems.
A good rule of thumb: if the data only needs to drive decisions within the workflow, use Default. If it needs to live on the file for future use, use Custom.
Q10: What's the best practice for using the Extract Agent with loops?
Always use a loop even if you're only processing a single file. When you reference the file inside the loop, the agent correctly scopes its extraction to that specific file. Skipping the loop can cause the agent to behave unpredictably.
Q11: How do I get my AI agent to behave reliably? Any tips?
This was one of the most popular topics and no surprise given our poll results! Here are the key tips shared during the session:
1. Keep prompts simple and explicit. The more specific you are, the better the agent performs. Avoid vague instructions.
2. Specify the exact output format. For example, instead of asking the agent to "evaluate the document," tell it: "Only return 'approved' or 'not approved'." Constrained outputs are far more reliable.
3. Test in isolation. The product team is actively building the ability to test agent outcomes independently before wiring them into a full workflow. This will make iteration much faster.
Q12: What AI model does the Box Agent run on? Can users select the model?
Currently, Box Agent runs on Gemini. The ability to configure the model per agent outcome is coming soon so you'll have more flexibility to choose the right model for the right task. Stay tuned for announcements on this!
Category 3: Forms, Notifications & Integrations
Q13: The Notification outcome doesn't allow me to input a Box Forms email address, is this on the roadmap?
Yes! The team is aware of this limitation and is working on extending support for Box Forms email addresses in the Notification outcome. No specific timeline, but it's being actively addressed.
Q14: Can Box Automate workflows be used to auto-populate folders and change folder names dynamically?
Yes, this is a great use case for Box Automate! You can use workflow variables (including extracted metadata) to dynamically name folders and route content into the right locations. This is particularly powerful for intake → routing → action workflows.
Category 4: Advanced Use Cases (Pre-Submitted)
Q15: Can Box Automate support a CLM-like (Contract Lifecycle Management) workflow, including metadata templates, AI agents, Box Sign, and storage?
Absolutely, this is one of the most compelling use cases for Box Automate. You can chain together:
- A Box Form to capture intake data, including contracts and other files
- A Metadata Extract Agent to pull key contract terms
- Conditional routing based on contract value or type
- Box Sign for e-signature
- Folder routing for final storage
This end-to-end contract workflow is very achievable today. If you're building something like this, we'd love to see it. Share it in the community!
Q16: Can Box Automate replace a records management system like IBM FileNet for managing the complete lifecycle of electronic and physical records?
Box Automate, combined with Box Governance and metadata, can handle many records lifecycle scenarios, including classification, retention, routing, and disposition. For complex records management requirements (especially physical records), we'd recommend connecting with your Box account team to map out the specific requirements and see what's achievable. This is a great conversation to have with your team!
Q17: Can Box Automate workflows be triggered by a file upload combined with a Metadata Extract agent and custom AI agents?
Yes, the file upload trigger combined with an Extract Agent is a core pattern in Box Automate. If you've been experiencing issues with agents not running successfully (with or without a loop), the key fix is to always use a loop and reference the loop file*(see Q10 above). If you're still running into issues after applying that pattern, please reach out via the community or submit a support ticket at [support.box.com](https://support.box.com).
Still Have Questions?
We'd love to keep the conversation going! Drop your questions, ideas, or workflow wins right here in the comments below. Whether you're stuck on a specific step, want feedback on a workflow design, or just want to share what you've built — this community is here for you.
And if you run into a technical issue that needs hands-on support, you can always reach the Box support team at https://support.box.com)
See you at the next session! 🎉
— The Box Customer Community Team