Lava From Entity

This action takes an attribute that contains a GUID and loads the entity from the database and then allows you to format that Entity via Lava. You configure the Entity Type that is expected in the Settings for the action. Think of this as the Attribute Set from Entity action, except that you can tell it what Entity you want.

Configuration

• Entity Type - The IEntity type to load.
• Entity Attribute - The Attribute that holds the GUID of the entity object to load.
• Attribute - The Attribute to store the results into.
• Lava - The lava text to parse.

Example Usage

Let's say we have an Attribute called Member that contains a GUID value for a GroupMember entity and we want to generate some text that says Thank you Daniel for joining the Cat Lovers group.. We would set the Entity Type to GroupMember; Entity Attribute to Member; Attribute to Value and then set our Lava to Thank you {{ Entity.Person.FirstName }} for joining the {{ Entity.Group.Name }} group.

Loop Over String

Think of this as a for loop in C or C#. This action takes a string value from an Attribute and splits it into components. Each component is then used to execute another activity in the workflow.

Configuration

• Source - The Attribute that has the string.
• Seperator - The string to use when splitting the Source string (usually a comma).
• Activity - The Activity to activate for each iteration.
• Index Key - The key name of the Attribute that holds the current index in the loop in the spawned Activity. (optional)
• Value Key - The key name of the Attribute that the element will be placed into in the spawned Activity. (optional)
• Wait For Completion - Pauses execution of this activity until all the spawned activities have completed.

Example Usage

When the Action fires it split the Source attribute by the contents of the Seperator attribute into a temporary array. For each component of this array it will execute the Activity defined by the Activity attribute. If the activity has an attributed that matches the value of the Index Key attribute then its value will be set to the integer number of the index of the element in the array. If the activity has an attribute that matches the value of the Value Key attribute then its value will be set to string value of the component from the array.

Here is a simple example of a workflow with two Activities:

• Workflow Main
  • Setup
    • Loop Over String; Activity = Process
  • Process
    • Attribute Set to Group Leader
    • Assign Activity from Attribute Value
    • User Entry Form
    • Set Group Attribute

This will dice the string up into group GUIDs and then spin up a workflow activity of Process for each group. We then load the group leader from that group, assign the activity to them and send them an e-mail asking them to fill out a form. Once they complete the form the value is stored as an attribute in the group.

Note: Because this is spawning new activities for each loop instance; please be mindful of when you use it with the Wait For Completion setting set to true. This will cause the workflow to persist which means all those spawned activities get saved forever in your database. Be mindful anytime you use the Wait setting or any other actions that cause the workflow to persist, such as the User Entry Form.

Wait For Completion

Some information about the Wait For Completion setting. The way this works is by returning a value that tells the workflow that this action did not fully complete. Other activities in the workflow will continue but this activity will be suspended until the entire workflow is next queued to be run. By default this is every 10 minutes. What this means is that if you have a workflow with a loop that is set to Wait For Completion then there will be a delay before it finishes, even if it isn't actually waiting for anything.

This is because the first time the workflow is it will spawn all the iteration activities and then the main activity will pause. During this first run all the spawned activities may finish. At a best case scenario they do finish. Then on the second run of the workflow it will be able to complete the initial loop action and continue executing that activity which would complete the workflow. In a standard install of workflows being executed every 10 minutes, this means your workflow may take up to 10 minutes before it has completed.

Generally this is not a problem, but if you are expecting an immediate result back from the workflow you may run into issues. executed

Activate Activity With Attributes

This provides the same functionality as the normal Activate Activity but provides the additional functionality of being able to map attribute values from the current activity to the one being activated. Think of this as passing arguments to the activity.