The objects
Rule
The customer-facing intake gate. Describes what a customer may upload for a product — how many files (cardinality), which file types, and whether each file is accepted, accepted with warnings, or rejected — synchronously, while the customer waits. A Rule references a Preflight Profile by id; it does not contain checks itself.
Preflight Profile
A named set of checks that answer “what makes this file acceptable?” — color, bleed, fonts, resolution, structure. Comes in two kinds, PDF and Raster. Each check carries a severity: reject, warn, or info.
Workflow
The fulfillment pipeline. It points at one Rule at intake, then defines what happens afterward: fixing, optimizing, splitting, merging, exporting. The only object you publish to customers.
Job
One run of a file (or set of files) through preflight, validation, or optimization. Jobs are created by a Workflow, or manually in the admin. Each carries a result you can act on.
Optimization Preset
A standalone transform that forces a PDF or Raster into a target shape — downsample images, convert color, flatten layers, strip metadata, outline text. Independent of the chain above; applied where you need a guaranteed output.
How they relate
A Workflow points at a Rule at its intake stage; the Rule (optionally) points at a Preflight Profile; the profile is made of checks. Running a file through the Workflow produces a Job. Optimization Presets sit to the side — applied in a workflow’s processing stage, or run on their own.Naming: a Rule is the standalone intake object (the Library tab is “Upload Rules”). The individual rules inside a Preflight Profile are called checks — different layer, different word.
Reuse is the point
Because Rules, Preflight Profiles, and Optimization Presets are independent Library objects, you build each once and reuse it everywhere. One “PDF/X-4 Compliant” profile can back the rules for posters, business cards, and packaging at the same time — edit it once and every workflow that uses it picks up the change.Where each is configured
| Object | Where in the admin |
|---|---|
| Workflow | Workflows tab |
| Rule | Library → Upload Rules |
| Preflight Profile (and its checks) | Library → Preflight Profiles |
| Optimization Preset | Library → Optimization Presets |
| Job | Jobs tab (and your store dashboard) |
Configure these in the admin
Step-by-step guides for building each object in the dashboard.