Data pills

Each time you add an action to a flow, Workflow Studio adds a data pill to store its results. The data pill name indicates its sequence in the flow and its data type.

Flow designers use action result data pills to provide input for other flows, actions, or subflows. Flow designers can use the sequence value in the data pill name to ensure that they select the correct data pill as an input value. When a flow runs an action, it generates the data pill runtime value as it is used. For example, if a data pill for [Trigger->Incident record] gets populated with incident record values at the start of a flow, and then the incident record values are updated, the data pill reflects the updated real-time values for the rest of the flow.

Data pill population

Workflow Studio populates data pill values when the action, flow logic, or subflow that produces the data pill finishes running. If another action, flow logic, or subflow runs and changes the data pill value, then the new value is used for the rest of the flow. For example, suppose that you have a flow triggered by the creation of an incident record that performs the following actions.

[Omitted image “example-flow-data-population.png”] Alt text: Flow illustrating when data pill values are set

1. Set Flow Variables flow logic to store the value of the [Trigger->Incident Record->Short description] in the original-short-description flow variable.

2. Update [Incident] Record action to add a text string to [Trigger->Incident Record->Short description].

3. Log action to store the value of the [Trigger->Incident Record->Short description] data pill.

4. Log action to store the value of the [2->Incident Record->Short description] data pill.

5. Log action to store the value of the original-short-description flow variable.

[Omitted image “example-data-population.png”] Alt text: Flow execution details showing the data pill values of the incident short description.

When you test this flow and view it’s execution details, you can see that the runtime values reflect the actions and flow logic that were run. Action-1 stores the original incident short description in a flow variable called original-short-description. Action-2 changes the value of the [Trigger->Incident Record->Short description] data pill to add the prefix NEW VALUE: to the front of the string. Any other actions that use this data pill will use this new value. Action-3 logs the current value of the [Trigger->Incident Record->Short description] data pill, which has been updated by Action-2. Action-4 logs the value of the [2->Incident Record->Short description] data pill, which has the same value as the [Trigger->Incident Record->Short description] data pill. Both data pills store the incident short description as set by Action-2. Action-5 logs the value of the original-short-description flow variable set by Action-1.

Important: Prior to Washington DC release, Workflow Studio populated all data pill values as soon as the data became available regardless of where the data pill was located in the flow sequence. In this example, the Action-3 data pill for [Trigger->Incident Record->Short description] would be set when the flow starts rather than using the updated the data pill value generated by Action-2. If the older behavior is desired, you can use flow variables to store data pill values as they are generated. For example, Action-1 stores the [Trigger->Incident Record->Short description]data pill in a flow variable called original-short-description before the data pill value is changed.

Data security and HTML sanitization

Workflow Studio protects against cross-site scripting and code injection by evaluating all string data for HTML markup. The system only preserves HTML markup that is present in its inclusion list. All other HTML markup is removed from string data.

The inclusion list supports these HTML elements and attributes, which cannot be modified.

HTML element Included Attributes a class, href, target, title abbr class, title address class area alt, class, coords, href, shape article class aside class audio autoplay, class, controls, loop, preload, src b class bdi class, dir bdo class, dir big class blockquote cite, class br class caption class center class cite class code class col align, class, span, valign, width colgroup align, class, span, valign, width dd class del class, datetime details class, open div class dl class dt class em class emp class font class, color, face, size footer class h1 class h2 class h3 class h4 class h5 class h6 class header class hr class html   i class img alt, class, height, src, title, width input aria-label, class, type, value ins class, datetime li class mark class nav class ol class p class pre class s class section class small class span class sub class sup class svg class strong class style   table align, border, class, valign, width tag class tbody align, class, valign td align, class, colspan, rowspan, valign, width tfoot align, class, valign th align, class, colspan, rowspan, valign, width thead align, class, valign tr align, class, rowspan, valign tt class u class ul class video autoplay, class, controls, height, loop, preload, src, width