how to achieve "if field value is NOT null" logic branching in flow designer?

AndrewB1 · ‎01-02-2020

To make a long story short, I've tried a number of things and am unable to create and IF branch in a flow that runs only when a task field is NOT empty. The goal is to send out approvals to the individuals in an "additional_approvers" field if that field contains values, otherwise the flow ends. Is there any reason why simply using the IF conditional set to "is not" then leaving the next field blank shouldn't work for this?

Alternatively, would it be reasonable to create a custom action that might return T/F based on whether input is null, as a workaround?

Purna1 · ‎07-05-2021

In old version, We are using "is not" from filter and leave as black but in latest version(Quebec) we have OOTB functions.
ServiceNow has provided OOTB box utilities functions. We can call the function to check the data pill is blank or null value.
Please find the reference screenshot.

For more information. Please refer below link

https://docs.servicenow.com/bundle/quebec-servicenow-platform/page/administer/flow-designer/reference/utilities-transform-functions.html#d1097001e249

View solution in original post

Danny Mortensen · ‎04-26-2021

I had the same issue, but only with list type fields.
With any other reference fields you can just check for 'is not' blank as Pradeep suggested and it works fine, but not for List type fields.

I ended up just not checking and asking for approval for an empty approver.

An 'is empty' option would be much nicer. It's a pretty common option available in the standard Condition Builder. I would have expected to see it in the Flow designer too. I know it's still maturing but that to me is a given functionality wise.

Pradeep Sharma · ‎01-02-2020

Hi Andrew,

In that case, you will just select "is not" from the filter and leave the input as blank. Please let me know in case this option doesn't work for you.

- Pradeep Sharma

AndrewB1 · ‎01-03-2020

Thanks Pradeep, I agree this makes sense and is what I attempted first but interestingly that approaches evaluates to FALSE in all cases, regardless of if the additional_approvers field is populated or empty.

Rim · ‎06-01-2021

Hi Andrew, did you find any solution to this? I am struggling with this one as well, even though list collector is blank, flow treats this "blank" as a value.

AndrewB1 · ‎06-02-2021

Oh my, it's been a long time since I worked on this, I believe we worked around it by using some if/else flows as I recall. Here's how the finished flow looked, if you want to know about a specific step let me know. But I'm not seeing that we kept that particular action in there, presumably b/c we didn't get it to work.