👤 For process owners and account administrators
🔐 Planning guidance; resources depend on the account subscription
🎯 For teams planning operational growth with a usage forecast and a review routine
A team starts receiving more requests, new people join the approval process, and the workflow gains connections to other systems. Everyone understands the workload ahead. The next question is what that growth will require from the account.
By the end of this article, you will know how to connect process demand to the resources it uses, compare a forecast with contracted capacity, and assign someone to review consumption before the next expansion.
📖 What you will learn:
Map what will grow in the process
Start with the work that needs to happen. How many requests arrive during a typical period? Which days or weeks bring higher volumes? Who submits, reviews, approves and tracks each request?
Include what happens after a request comes in. It may return for changes, create work in another pipe or require a lookup in an external system.
Before expanding the workflow, gather the following:
- Expected request volume and the busiest period.
- The people involved, their roles and their access needs.
- Cards involved, including those in connected processes.
- Steps that use automations, AI Agents or Pipefy Integrations.
- Queries and updates made by external applications through the API.
Mark which assumptions come from observed history and which still need testing. For a new process, use a sample that covers common paths and important exceptions.
To review what belongs in each process and stage, read Pipefy fundamentals: concepts, structure and good practices (in Portuguese).
To review the workflow before estimating usage, take the Process Implementation Certification, available at this link in Portuguese. Apply its process modeling and planning content to your workflow. Access to the lessons requires signing in or creating an Academy account.
Identify the measures for each resource
Capacity describes what is available under the account terms. Consumption describes what has been used. To compare them, identify the resource, its unit and the relevant period.
Members, cards, automation tasks and AI credits represent different measures. Record them separately and use the account terms to identify available capacity. Avoid estimating one resource from the amount available for another.
For native automations, the configured rule is different from the task counted when its trigger fires. Checking the condition can consume a task even when the action does not run.
- Learn more: review the difference between automation rules and tasks, in Portuguese.
If the process uses AI, the API or integrations, give each resource its own row. Gather usage data and the applicable terms before estimating growth. Do not use automation task accounting as a rule for other resources.
Turn expected volume into an estimate
Imagine a Procurement team that receives 400 requests per month and plans to handle 700. This is a hypothetical example. Start by identifying which events each request generates and how often they occur.
Suppose the path being assessed has three countable native automation triggers per card, without AI. For 700 cards, that component represents 2,100 tasks. This is a hypothetical estimate: recurring events, returns and other paths need separate assessment.
Build two forecasts: one for typical volume and another for the expected peak. After a controlled test or a period of use, compare the estimate with available records and revise the assumptions. If the process uses the API, ask the integration owner to identify the calls involved.
Compare the forecast with account usage
The new process may share resources with other teams. Compare its forecast with usage already observed across the account, using the same resource, scope and period. Avoid adding consumption again if it is already included in the observed total.
Ask the account administrator for usage data and capacity covering the planning period. Record the source and the interval covered so that the comparison can be reviewed. If information is missing, treat it as a condition to clarify before increasing volume.
Use this comparison to choose the next decision:
- Keep the workflow design and monitor usage when the forecast fits available capacity.
- Review the frequency and scope of triggers where an adjustment is useful, preserving process controls and testing the changes.
- Discuss a contract adjustment when expected demand requires additional capacity.
Agree on ownership and when to act
Assign someone to track usage and involve the people who can explain changes in volume. The process owner follows demand, the account administrator checks consumption, and the technical team helps assess API and integration activity.
Use a shared record with one row per resource. Include its unit, period, confirmed capacity or balance, observed consumption, forecast, owner, next review and expected action. Your company sets the review frequency according to process criticality and the time needed to act.
If an expansion is planned for next week, schedule the review before it happens. Bring the resource, period, observed usage and forecast to your commercial contact or official support channel. Confirm the applicable terms before relying on additional capacity.
Before moving on, confirm that you understand:
☐ Request volume and resource consumption are different measures.
☐ Each resource needs an estimate in its own unit and applicable period.
☐ Expansion needs to account for other processes sharing the account.
☐ You can assign an owner, a review and an action before increasing volume.
Ready to plan how customers and suppliers will participate? → How to define guest access in Pipefy (in Portuguese)
