{"revision":"c10276e953456835cdbb1f3a60d58ae1980be353","document":{"id":4269,"path":"build-workflows/workflow-studio/optional-activities.md","title":"Optional activities","bundle":null,"doc_type":null,"release":"australia","body":"\n# Optional activities\n\nEnable your agents and fulfillers to add additional activities as they go through a playbook.\n\n## Overview\n\nAdmins enable and add optional activities in the Workflow Studio Playbooks builder, while agents and fulfillers add and complete optional activities in Playbook Experience.\n\nAs an example, if you have a playbook for a Security Incident, a playbook admin could add an optional activity for a virus scan. When the activity runs, the optional virus scan activity would take the parent Security Incident record and run third-party virus scanning integrations on Configuration Management Database \\(CMDB\\) assets associated with the parent record. The security analyst can decide at runtime whether to run a virus scan based on their assessment of the situation.\n\nThe flow of working with optional activities:\n\n1.  Turn on and add optional activities to a playbook in Workflow Studio.\n2.  Optional activities are configured like other activities. To see [design an automated process](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/build-workflows/workflow-studio/design-automated-process.md).\n3.  Agents add optional activities in Playbook Experience.\n\n**Parent Topic:**[Stages and activities](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/build-workflows/workflow-studio/process-automation-designer-lanes-activities.md)\n\n## Add an Optional Activity to a playbook\n\nAs a Playbooks administrator, add an optional activity to a playbook that Playbook Experience agents and fulfillers can choose to add and complete during the playbook runtime.\n\n### Before you begin\n\nRole required: playbook.admin or pd\\_author\n\n### Procedure\n\n1.  Navigate to **All** > **Process Automation** > **Workflow Studio** > **Playbooks**.\n\n2.  Open the playbook that you want to add an optional activity to.\n\n3.  Switch to **Board view**.\n\n    \\[Omitted image \"board-view.png\"\\] Alt text: Toggle for Diagram and Board views\n\n4.  In the upper right-hand corner, toggle on **Optional activities**.\n\n    \\[Omitted image \"optional-activities.png\"\\] Alt text: Toggle on Optional activities\n\n    The optional activities swimlane opens.\n\n5.  Add an optional activity.\n\n    Global optional activities can be inserted by the agent or fulfiller anywhere in the playbook, while a stage-specific optional activity can only be inserted within its specific stage.\n\n6.  Configure your activity the way that you would configure a regular activity.\n\n\n"}}