---
title: "Enterprise Maturity Workshop: Automate with no"
description: "This tutorial shows how to extend a SaaS Todo application with a weekly organizational report using Okta Workflows, a no-code automation platform. It adds an API service to the application, exposes the local app through a tunnel, and configures a scheduled flow to retrieve all todo items. A helper flow processes the returned list with a Reduce card, carrying accumulated text in a memo field before producing one summary for the Gmail Send Email card. The report is sent automatically by email after the items are combined. The workshop concludes by enabling both flows and testing the automation, while noting that the local setup is for demonstration and that a real-world application would be deployed in the cloud."
---

# Enterprise Maturity Workshop: Automate with no

[Okta](https://yomu.fyi/company/okta) · Max Katz · Sep 15, 2023

**Type:** Tutorial

## Summary

This tutorial shows how to extend a SaaS Todo application with a weekly organizational report using Okta Workflows, a no-code automation platform. It adds an API service to the application, exposes the local app through a tunnel, and configures a scheduled flow to retrieve all todo items. A helper flow processes the returned list with a Reduce card, carrying accumulated text in a memo field before producing one summary for the Gmail Send Email card. The report is sent automatically by email after the items are combined. The workshop concludes by enabling both flows and testing the automation, while noting that the local setup is for demonstration and that a real-world application would be deployed in the cloud.

## Context

The tutorial is part of an on-demand workshop series about making SaaS applications enterprise-ready. Its local application and tunnel simplify API connectivity for demonstration; the text states that a real-world application would be deployed in the cloud.

## Approach / What changed

Create an Okta Workflows flow named Todo Report, schedule it to run periodically, call a new Todo application API through a local tunnel, retrieve the todo items, and pass them to a helper flow. The helper uses a Reduce card to build one text summary, which the main flow sends through Gmail. Both flows are then enabled and tested.

## Takeaways

- Okta Workflows represents automations as visual flows made from app action and function cards, without requiring code.
- The Todo Report flow calls an API to retrieve todo items, while a helper flow uses Reduce to combine the list into a single text message.
- The demonstration runs the application locally through a tunnel; the tutorial notes that production applications would be deployed in the cloud.

## FAQ

### How does the helper flow turn multiple todo items into one email message?

The Reduce card processes the todo list one item at a time. It carries the accumulated text in a memo field, adds each item, and returns one final value to the main flow for the Gmail Send Email card.

### Why does the workshop use a local tunnel?

The local setup makes it straightforward to connect Okta Workflows to the Todo application API without deploying the application in the cloud. The tutorial describes this setup as being for demonstration purposes only.

### What must be running before testing the automation?

The application's front end, back end, and tunnel must be running. The Todo Report and Todo Report\_Helper flows must also be turned on, and the tunnel URL must be updated in the Get card if the tunnel restarted.

**Tags:** [Automation](https://yomu.fyi/topic/automation), [Okta Workflows](https://yomu.fyi/topic/okta-workflows)

- Source: [Okta](https://developer.okta.com/blog/2023/09/15/workflows-workshop)
- Source URL: https://developer.okta.com/blog/2023/09/15/workflows-workshop
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-09-17T14:12:56.158Z

[Read original post](https://developer.okta.com/blog/2023/09/15/workflows-workshop)