Actions
An Action is a built-in feature on the Blink platform. It is the functional element of a Step. Actions enable you to perform operations on remote systems.
To make an Action function within a Step, you need to provide the required input parameters for the chosen Action. A connection needs to be selected or created to enable communication with the external system. For some Action a connection is not necessary. After a Step has run and the Action is executed, the output will be presented in the most suitable format. (Raw text, JSON, or in a table.) A Step's output can be used as input in following steps using expression language.
Action Types
Actions are divided into the following types:
| Action type | Description | Connection |
|---|---|---|
| Flow control | Create Steps such as If, If else, For each,Call another Workflow (subflow) to influence the flow. | Depends on the Actions within a subflow |
| HTTP | Perform thousands of different out-of-the-box HTTP Actions. | Depends on the type of Action |
| CLI | Executes user commands on CLI apps instead of the UI. | Depends on the type of Action |
| SQL query | A SQL layer for running queries to get visibility into your cloud infrastructure and SaaS applications. | ✓ |
| Interactive | Ask a question via email/Slack or Ask approval via Slack | Depends on the type of Action |
| Utility | Use files, json objects, tables and more in Workflows | Depends on the type of Action |
Understanding the Action Panel
- Actions are grouped by collections. A collection is typically an external service provider such as AWS, Kubernetes, Slack etc. Each collection contains all the available actions for that specific provider. For example, the GitHub collection contains actions that can be preformed using GitHub’s API: cloning a repository,listing branches/pull requests,creating a new repository and many more.
- On the panel on the left of your Workflow Editor page all the actions are displayed. The Action panel is divided into internal flow Actions and external service providers. The Action panel enables you to easily search for an Actions and then 'drag and drop' it into the Workflow Editor page.