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.

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.

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.

Table 1. HTML inclusion list
HTML elementIncluded 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