Workflow Studio data

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.

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.

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.

Table 1. HTML inclusion list

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