Syncing Changes to Active Runs

When you edit a published process, those changes don’t automatically apply to runs that are already in progress. Sync lets you push your latest updates down to active runs whenever you’re ready — one run at a time, or all of them at once.

When to use it

• You added a task you forgot, and you want it on the runs already in flight.
• You realised a question on a task should be required, not optional.
• You renamed a task or rewrote its instructions, and you want existing runs to see the new wording.

How publishing fits in

Sync reads from the latest published version of your process. The workflow is:

1. Edit your process.
2. Click Publish changes (you’ll see an amber Unpublished changes indicator while edits are pending).
3. Sync your active runs — one at a time, or all at once.

If you don’t publish first, your draft edits aren’t visible to runs. See Publishing & Unpublishing for more on the draft → published flow.

Syncing a single run

1. Open the run you want to update.
2. Click the Settings menu (top right) and choose Sync from template.
3. You’ll see a preview of every change:
   • Green — additions (new tasks, new fields, new sections)
   • Yellow — updates (renamed tasks, edited descriptions, structural changes)
   • Red — removals (tasks or fields removed from the template)
4. Click Apply to commit the changes.

Syncing every active run at once

1. Open the process overview page.
2. Click Sync N active runs at the top of the page.
3. Optionally tick Suppress assignment notifications — recommended for large bulks so people don’t get a flurry of emails for tasks added to many runs at once.
4. Watch live progress as each run is updated. If any fail, retry them individually. You can cancel at any time.

NextStep will also prompt you to run a bulk sync automatically right after you publish, whenever there are active runs.

What’s preserved vs. what changes

Always preserved on the run:

• Filled-in answers on surviving fields
• Completion records (who completed each task and when)
• Comments and attachments
• The run’s due date and task assignees (you set those per-run for a reason)

Template wins on:

• Task titles, descriptions, and ordering
• Required vs. optional status of fields
• Section structure
• The presence or absence of tasks and fields

Auto-reopen behaviour

If you add a required field to a task that’s already completed on a run, the task will automatically reopen and the assignee is notified. This avoids quietly marking a task “done” when there’s now unanswered required information.

The same rule applies to skipped tasks. Optional fields don’t trigger this.

Removed tasks

• If a task you removed was already completed or skipped on a run, it’s kept as a historical record so the audit trail stays intact.
• If it was still pending, it’s deleted cleanly along with any comments or dependencies.

Field changes

• Field removed from the template → the value is hard-deleted from runs. If the field was required and the task was completed, the task auto-reopens.
• Dropdown option removed → if a run had that option selected, the value is cleared (and the task auto-reopens if the field was required).
• New optional field added to a completed task → it shows up empty and the task stays completed.

Tasks assigned to “Whoever started the run”

• On a single-run sync, these resolve to the person who started that run.
• On a bulk sync, new tasks with this assignee are left unassigned — we don’t want to mass-assign tasks to dozens of people in one click. You’ll need to assign them manually after the sync.

Disabling sync

Template sync is on by default for every team. If you’d rather hide the sync prompts and menu items, a team admin can disable it from the team’s settings.

Related

• Publishing & Unpublishing — drafts, publishing, and version snapshots
• Adding Tasks — task configuration that sync respects
• Email Notifications — what triggers emails on a sync