This documentation supports the 21.3 version of BMC Helix Digital Workplace Advanced.To view an earlier version, select the version from the Product version menu.

Data handling in workflow activities


As a catalog administrator, internal service supplier administrator, or internal service supplier you must consider the data input and data output for each activity in a workflow. For information about how to design a workflow, see Workflow-design-process-overview.  

The following image shows the Properties panel of the Get Entry activity.

GetEntry.png

You can find input data in the Input map section of a selected activity. Each activity in a workflow has a unique input map. For information about input map of workflow activities, see Service-connector-capabilities.

Most of activities return output data passed with the output variable of a selected activity. You can also configure an output expression for a selected activity in the Output map section.

You can configure an activity to repeat multiple times in the Multi instance loop section of a selected activity.

Input map

You configure input for a selected activity by completing fields in the Input map section. The following table describes the types of input data that you can enter for any input field: 

Important

You must manually enter the text values for parameters that require a text string input.


Input type

Description

Example

Reference

Text string

Use a text string when you need to pass a static value to an activity.

Note: You must enter text strings manually and enclose them in double quotes.

TextString.png

Not applicable

Process context variable

Select a process context variable to capture specific information from a service and service request

ProcessContextVariable.png

Process input variable

Select a process input variable to collect answers from a service requester.

ProcessInputVariable.png

Output variable

Select an output variable from another activity of a workflow.

OutputVariable.png

Local variable

Select a local variable mapped to an output expression of another activity in a workflow.

LocalVariable.png

General variable

Select a general variable to capture information from the BMC Digital Workplace Catalogplatform

GeneralVariable.png

Not applicable

Custom expression

Build a custom expression to pass different input types.

Note: You must insert + symbol between variable types in a custom expression.

CustomExpression.png

Not applicable


Output map

Most of activities can pass data to other activities in a workflow. If the Output map section is available for a selected activity, you can map a local variable to an output expression, and associate the local variable with input fields of any activity in a workflow. 

For information about how to configure the output map, see Configuring an output map for an activity and using it in multiple.activities.

Multi instance loop

You can design a workflow to process multiple arrays of data  within a single activity in a workflow.  You can configure a multi instance loop for an activity and specify whether to process these pieces of data sequentially or in parallel. For more information about how to configure a multi instance loop for an activity, see Processing-data-sequentially-and-in-parallel.

Required licensing

SaaS subscribers who use BMC Helix ITSM or BMC-Helix-Virtual-Agent-Basic-service are entitled to this feature.

 

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