Product data enrichment rarely follows a linear pattern. Your merchandiser updates a description, your translator localizes it, the marketplace manager needs to add a channel-specific attribute, and someone in operations updates the data to include a missing value. Then, everyone asks, “Which version is final?” since all of this is happening at different times and in different orders. 

Thankfully, this kind of problem can be solved using Akeneo’s product enrichment workflow capabilities, which are designed to improve consistency, quality, compliance, collaboration, and productivity across product data operations.

In this blog, we’ll break down everything you need to know about this feature in addition to how a well-designed Akeneo PIM workflow can help teams launch products faster, reduce manual handoffs, validate AI-generated or supplier-provided content, and protect downstream systems like Shopify, Adobe Commerce, marketplaces, ERPs, DAMs, and translation tools from messy data.

What are Akeneo Collaboration Workflows?

Akeneo Collaboration Workflows are structured product-enrichment and review processes within Akeneo PIM. They help teams move product data through defined stages, such as copywriting, translation, compliance review, SEO enrichment, marketplace preparation, or final approval.

This means a product can enter a workflow, get assigned to the right user or team, move through enrichment and review steps, and eventually become ready for export, activation, or synchronization. Akeneo notes that the same product can also be part of multiple workflows, which is useful when different teams are responsible for different parts of the product data lifecycle.

When Should Ecommerce Teams Use Akeneo Workflows?

Akeneo workflows are great when product information needs to pass through multiple hands before going live.

Common ecommerce use cases include:

1. New product onboarding: Move products from initial setup to technical enrichment, marketing copy, SEO content, and final review.

2. Localization and translation: Coordinate regional teams that need to adapt product content for different languages, markets, or channels.

3. Compliance review: Route regulated or sensitive product data to legal, regulatory, or quality assurance teams before publication.

4. AI-generated content review: Let AI accelerate content creation, then add human approval before content reaches customers.

5. Marketplace readiness: Validate marketplace-specific content, product attributes, assets, and category mappings before sending data downstream.

6. Supplier data validation: Review and clean data provided by vendors, apps, or third-party sources before it becomes trusted catalogue content.

Use workflows anywhere you need enrichment, activation, localization, categorization, media and brand assets, GenAI review, compliance, ERP and logistics workflows, or product lifecycle management.

One-Time vs Continuous Workflows in Akeneo

Akeneo has two different workflow types for users to choose from:

1. One-Time Workflow: Best for initial product enrichment. Products enter the workflow when it’s enabled and move through it once. This is great for product creation, onboarding, quality sweeps, and first-round enrichment tasks.

2. Continuous Workflow: A continuous workflow can be triggered by any product update or by a specific attribute update. This makes it useful when product data needs to be rechecked whenever something meaningful changes, such as ingredients, sustainability claims, technical specs, translated copy, or marketplace fields.

One important thing to note about Akeneo’s continuous workflow option is that a product can only re-enter the same continuous workflow after it has completed the current sequence of steps. Akeneo doesn’t keep a queue of ignored re-entry events while that product still has pending tasks in the workflow.

How to set up Akeneo Collaboration Workflows

To create a workflow in Akeneo PIM, admins go to Workflows > Settings, create a workflow, and add a descriptive label and code. Akeneo supports up to 100 workflows, giving teams room to model different business processes without forcing everything into a single approval queue.

From there, the setup usually follows four major decisions:

1. Define the workflow entry: This is where you choose whether the workflow is one-time or continuous. For continuous workflows, you can choose whether products enter based on any product update or specific attribute updates. Akeneo supports up to 50 attribute update triggers using “or” logic.

2. Define the product selection: This decides which products are eligible for the workflow. Akeneo allows filtering by criteria such as status, category, completeness, family, family variant, updated date, identifier, select attributes, text attributes, measurements, dates, assets, price collections, table attributes, created date, entity type, groups, files, images, parent property, and more. You can add up to 200 product selection criteria, and Akeneo displays a counter indicating how many products match the filters when the workflow is edited and enabled.

3. Define the steps: Akeneo workflows support enrichment steps and review steps. You can add up to 20 steps per workflow. This should be enough for most product enrichment processes. 

4. Assign users and permissions: Workflow setup depends on role permissions, user groups, category access, locales, channels, and attribute groups. Your workflow should reflect how your teams actually work and what they’re allowed to see, edit, own, review, or approve.

Review Steps and Approval Governance

The Review step is one of the most important parts of Akeneo Collaboration Workflows. Akeneo introduced a dedicated Review step type in its January 2025 Serenity updates, positioning it as a way to support structured collaborative review–especially for GenAI or supplier-provided content. Reviewers can provide feedback before final sign-off, helping teams maintain data accuracy, brand consistency, and better collaboration.

In Akeneo, enrichment steps are mainly used for editing and copywriting. Review steps are used to approve, reject, comment on, or correct product tasks before they move forward. This is a way to integrate feedback loops into workflows so teams can improve data quality, accuracy and consistency.

There is, however, a detail teams need to understand before designing governance around workflows: Collaboration Workflows don’t create product drafts or unpublished proposal versions. Users edit and review directly on the live product record. Contributors also need “Own” permissions on the relevant product category to save values during a task.

Due to this, we recommend using final review actions such as setting categorization, enabling a status attribute, or assigning a mandatory attribute like “Go Live” or “Go to Market” to prevent products from being activated prematurely. These actions can also be handled through Step Automation.

A strong approval workflow might look like this:

1. Product data is imported from a supplier or an ERP system.

2. A merchandising team completes the required commercial attributes.

3. A content team writes product descriptions and SEO fields.

4. A translation team localizes copy for target markets.

5. A legal or brand reviewer approves the content.

6. A final workflow step updates a “Ready for ecommerce” attribute.

7. Approved data is exported to Shopify, Adobe Commerce, marketplaces, or another downstream channel.

Managing Workflow Tasks Day to Day

For business users, Akeneo Collaboration Workflows are managed through My Workflows. This board lets users track assigned workflow steps and pending tasks from one place. It shows product tasks to complete, their priority levels, assignment details, and urgent, late, and rejected tasks that require action.

When users open a task list, they can see product tasks in the Product Grid, including priority tags, due dates, and attribute progress bars. Akeneo also supports sequential editing, column customization, quick export, and bulk actions from the task list.

Bulk actions can be especially useful for high-volume enrichment. For example, Akeneo lets users complete done tasks or approve tasks in batches when all required assigned attributes are populated. This kind of batch approval can be useful for AI-generated or translated content, where teams may review a sample before approving a broader set of products.

For managers, Akeneo’s workflow dashboard helps managers monitor active workflows, pending product tasks, late or urgent alerts, and assigned users.

Akeneo Workflow Automation and Integrations

Akeneo Step Automation lets teams connect workflow-based rules to workflow steps. These rules can run when product tasks start, complete, or are approved. Workflow-based rules can automate actions such as generating AI content, setting, copying, concatenating, clearing, and updating values, as well as changing status attributes.

Akeneo also supports workflow connectivity through APIs and events. Its API reference includes endpoints for workflows, workflow executions, and workflow tasks, allowing you to retrieve workflows, start workflow executions, get workflow tasks, and update task status.

The Akeneo Event Platform is a subscription-based event system that adds another layer, allowing external applications to subscribe to events triggered in Akeneo PIM, enabling faster updates and synchronization than continuous polling.

This kind of workflow connectivity can extend your work far beyond the PIM. Some use cases include:

1. Send a Slack alert when a product is rejected in review.

2. Trigger a translation task when master-language content is approved.

3. Notify the creative team in a DAM when images are missing.

4. Prevent products from syncing to Shopify until the final review step is complete.

5. Update a dashboard when marketplace readiness tasks are late.

6. Let external systems know when workflow status changes.

This way, your PIM remains the source of truth, while your workflows can also reside in the tools and systems your team members use every day.

Common Akeneo Workflow Pitfalls

Akeneo Collaboration Workflows can be super powerful tools for enriching your product data and accelerating your time to market, but there are still some pitfalls to look out for when setting them up.

First, don’t make your workflows too broad. Akeneo supports up to 50,000 concurrent products per workflow, but it recommends segmenting large catalogues into multiple logical workflows for performance. Products beyond that limit won’t enter immediately; instead, they’re batched in as active products complete tasks, and the system doesn't keep a queue.

Next, don’t assume product selection updates will clean up everything already in progress. If a product no longer meets the Product Selection criteria mid-workflow, it remains in the workflow until it reaches the final step. New criteria apply only to products entering the workflow for the first time.

Finally, don’t rely solely on workflow notifications. Akeneo sends notification emails for things like weekly pending-task recaps and daily rejection reminders, but teams that need real-time or channel-specific notifications should consider the REST API, Event Platform, or another integration instead. 

When to Bring in an Agency

Akeneo Collaboration Workflows work best when they’re designed around real business processes rather than copied from an idealized workflow chart. If your team is managing multiple brands, languages, sales channels, supplier feeds, approval layers, or downstream ecommerce platforms, it might be time to bring in an agency.

An Akeneo partner agency like Blue Badger can help teams answer questions like:

• Which product attributes should trigger review?

• Which teams should own which steps?

• How should workflow status affect Shopify, Adobe Commerce, marketplaces, or ERP syncs?

• Where should automation replace manual handoffs?

• How should AI-generated content be reviewed before publication?

• Which workflows should be one-time, continuous, or chained?

Our team can help map your current product enrichment process, identify where handoffs are breaking down, and configure workflows that match how your teams actually operate. That includes setting up product selection logic, user permissions, review steps, automation rules, and integrations with systems like Shopify, Adobe Commerce, ERPs, DAMs, translation tools, and marketplaces.

Conclusion

Akeneo Collaboration Workflows give ecommerce teams a more structured way to manage product enrichment, reviews, approvals, and automation inside the PIM. Instead of relying on spreadsheets, scattered messages, or unclear handoffs, teams can define who owns each step, what needs to be reviewed, and when product data is ready to move downstream.

For brands managing growing catalogues, multiple markets, supplier data, AI-generated content, or complex ecommerce integrations, that structure can make a major difference. The key is to start with one high-friction process, build a workflow around it, and refine from there.

At Blue Badger, we can help you build Akeneo Collaboration Workflows that genuinely speed up your team’s day-to-day tasks and remove the risks of overlapping, messy product data. Get in touch with us today to learn more.