Branching

The branch tool allows you to add branching logic to your Workflow. Think of branches as logical paths that your Workflow can take. Given some information about a previous step's results, your Workflow can follow one of many paths.

Branch steps are useful when you need to conditionally execute certain steps. Here are a couple of examples of what you can accomplish with branching:

Example 1: The webhook requests your Workflow receives could contain a "Widget Created", "Widget Updated", or "Widget Deleted" event. You need to execute a series of steps depending on which event type was received.

Example 2: You want to upsert data into a system that doesn't support upsert. You can check if a record exists and branch into "add a new record" or "update the existing record" branches depending on whether the record exists.

Branching on a value

A simple branch action branches on a value. If you've done any programming, it's very similar to the switch/case construct present in many programming languages. You declare "this step result will have one of these values - follow a branch based on which value it is."

Consider Example 1 above.

Suppose the webhook request you receive has an HTTP header, event, that can be one of three values: widget-created, widget-updated, or widget-deleted. You can look at that value and branch accordingly.

If your flow receives a widget-created event header, it will follow the "Created" branch, etc.

Branching on an expression

The Branch on Expression action allows you to create branches within your integration based on more complex inputs. You can compare step results or static values using comparison operators (like "does not equal" or "less than") and follow a branch based on the results of the comparisons.

Branch on expression comparison operators

Comparison operators allow you to compare two properties to one another. You can test if the two values are equal, if one value is contained within the other (assuming the second value is a list), if one timestamp is before another timestamp, etc.

If your comparison evaluates to true (for example, if you use the equals operator and both values are 5), the branch associated with that comparison within your Workflow is followed.

Equals

The equals operator evaluates if two fields are equal to one another, regardless of type.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
5.2	5.2	true
5.2	5	false
"5.2"	5.2	true	Strings are cast to numbers when compared to numbers
"Hello"	"Hello"	true
"Hello"	"hello"	false	String comparison is case-sensitive
false	0	true	Boolean false evaluates to 0, and true evaluates to 1.
[1,2,3]	[1,2,3]	true	Arrays whose elements are the same are considered equal
{"foo":"bar"}	{"foo":"bar"}	true	Objects with the same keys/values are equal

Does not equal

The does not equal operator evaluates if two fields are not equal to one another, regardless of type.

Left Field	Right Field	Result
5.3	5.2	true
[1,2,3]	[1,2,4]	true

Is greater than

The is greater than operator evaluates if the left field is greater than the right field, and is an implementation of the JavaScript greater than operator.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
5.2	5.3	false
5.3	5.3	false	The values are equal; one is not greater than the other
"5.3"	5.2	true	Strings are cast to numbers when compared to numbers
"Hello"	"World"	false	Strings are compared alphabetically - "Hello" does not occur after "World"
"hello"	"World"	true	The ASCII value for "h" occurs after "W"
true	false	true	true (1) is greater than false (0)

Is greater than or equal to

The is greater than or equal to operator is similar to is greater than, but also returns true if the values being compared are equal to one another.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
5.3	"5.3"	true	Strings are cast to numbers when compared to numbers

Is less than

The is less than operator evaluates if the left field is less than the right field.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
3	4	true
"abc"	"daa"	true	"a" is less than "d" alphabetically

Is less than or equal to

The is less than or equal to operator is similar to is less than, but also returns true if the values being compared are equal to one another.

Contained in

The contained in operator evaluates if the value of the left field is contained in the right field. The right field must be an array or a string.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
"world"	"Hello, world!"	true
"World"	"Hello, world!"	false	String comparison is case-sensitive
2	[1,2,3]	true
"2"	[1,2,3]	false	The string "2" does not occur in the array of numbers [1,2,3]

Not contained in

The not contained in operator evaluates if the value of the left field does not appear in the right field.

Left Field	Right Field	Result
2	[1,2,3]	false
'Hi'	'Hello'	true

Is empty

The is empty operator evaluates if the given value is an empty string or an empty array.

Field	Result
""	true
"hello"	false
[]	true
[1,2,3]	false

Exactly matches

The exactly matches operator evaluates if the two fields are equal to one another, taking type of the values into consideration.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
"5"	5	false	The string "5" is not equal to the number 5

Does not exactly match

The does not exactly match operator evaluates if the if the two fields are not equal to one another, taking type of the values into consideration.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
"5"	5	true	The string "5" is not equal to the number 5

Starts the string

The starts the string operator evaluates if the the right field's value begins with the left field's value. Both right and left values must be strings.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
"Test"	"Testing Value"	true
"test"	"Testing Value"	false	Comparisons are case-sensitive
"Test"	"A Testing Value"	false	The right field must start with the left value (not merely contain it)

Does not start the string

The does not start the string operator returns the opposite of the starts with operator.

Ends the string

The ends the string operator evaluates if the right field ends with the left field. Both right and left values must be strings.

Left Field	Right Field	Result
orld!	Hello, World!	true
orld	Hello, World!	false

Does not end the string

The does not end the string operator returns the opposite of the ends with operator.

Is after (date/time)

The is after (date/time) operator attempts to parse the left and right fields as dates, and evaluates if the left field occurs after the right field.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
"2021-03-20"	"2021-04-13"	false
"2021-03-20T12:50:30.105Z"	"2021-03-20T11:52:21.881Z"	true	When dates are equivalent, time is compared
"2021-03-20"	1631568050	false	1631568050 is the UNIX epoch time for 2021-09-13, which occurs after 2021-03-05

Note: Accepted DateTime Formats

The time comparison operators accept date/times as ISO strings (like 2021-03-20 or 2021-03-20T11:52:21.881Z), Unix epoch timestamps in milliseconds (for example, the number 1631568050 represents a time in 2021-09-13), or Date() JavaScript objects.

Is before (date/time)

The is before (date/time) operator attempts to parse the left and right fields as dates, and evaluates if the left field occurs before the right field.

Is the same (date/time)

The is the same (date/time) operator attempts to parse the left and right fields as dates, and evaluates if the timestamps are identical.

Left Field	Right Field	Result	Comments
"2021-03-20T12:50:30.105Z"	"2021-03-20T12:50:30.105Z"	true
"2021-03-20T12:50:30Z"	1616244630000	true	1616244630 is the millisecond UNIX epoch representation of March 20, 2021 12:50:30
"2021-03-20T12:50:30Z"	"2021-03-20T12:50:31Z"	false

Is true

The is true operator evaluates if an input field is "truthy".

Common "truthy" values include true, "true", "True", "Yes", "yes", "Y" and "y".

Common "falsy" values include false, "false", "False", "No", "no", "N" and "n" and evaluate to false. Other values that evaluate to false are 0, null, undefined, NaN and "".

All other values (a non-zero number, a non-empty string, any array or object, etc.) evaluates to true.

Field	Result
"Yes"	true
"True"	true
[]	true
{}	true
"Hello"	true
-5	true
"n"	false
false	false
""	false
null	false
0	false

Is false

The is false operator returns the opposite of the is true operator.

Does not exist

The does not exist operator evaluates to true if the presented value is one of the following: undefined, null, 0, NaN, false or "".

Field	Result
undefined	true
NaN	true
1	false
"Hello"	false

Exists

The exists operator returns the opposite of the does not exist operator.

Combining multiple comparison operators

Multiple expressions can be grouped together with And or Or clauses, which execute like programming and and or clauses. Take, for example, this programming expression:

if ((foo > 500 and bar <= 20) or ("b" in ["a","b","c"]))

The same logic can be represented with a group of conditionals in a Branch on Expression action: