Steps

Steps are the building blocks of a Workflow. Each Step has a single goal and Steps are arranged in a logical order to complete a workflow. The user selects an Action and adds a Connection, if required, to the Workflow's flow on the Editor.

Adding a Step

You can add Steps to your Workflow in one of the following ways:

1. Drag and drop: To create a Step, drag and drop Actions onto the canvas from the Action panel. At the top of the panel you can see the flow control actions and beneath them is a list of external service providers. To see the available Actions, open a service.

2. Inline adding: Click on the box in the middle of the canvas. Select a flow control action, or search for an action in the search bar.

Editing a Step

1. Click on on the Workflow you want to edit.

2. If required, you will be prompted to enter input parameters.

3. You will then be taken to to the Workflow editor where you can edit the Workflow as desired.

Renaming a Step

• To change the name of the Step, double click on the default action and rename it.

Defining Step Inputs

Step inputs can be mandatory or optional.

1. Mandatory inputs are displayed first in the Parameters section of the Step.

2. Optional inputs are displayed by clicking on Advanced at the bottom of the Parameters section of the Step.

Step Settings

tip

Access your step settings by clicking on the icon on the right-hand side of your step.

Step Settings Options

• Settings
  • Timeout (secs)
  • Disable Step- Skips the Step when running the Workflow
  • Save output to file- Allows you to save the output to a file and use the file in subsequent steps (You will be required to fill out an additional step by entering Output File Identifier and then clicking apply.)
• Error Handling
  • Continue on Error- executes the Workflow even if the Step fails.
  • Retry.
• Save as Custom Action: Saves the step as a custom action
• Discard Output: If configured to yes, any data produced from the step is discarded once the workflow execution is finished and isn't accessible in the step's output, in the workflow's run log or saved in the database. This option is useful, for example, if a step is dealing with sensitive data.
• Change Step- Select a different action for this step.
• Select Step- Selects one or multiple steps.
• Cut Step- Cuts the selected step from the automated workflow.
• Copy Step- Copies the selected step.
• Delete- Deletes the Step.

Configurable Retry at Step Level

Occasional failures in the target system can lead to the failure of certain actions, causing the entire Workflow process to fail. However, this issue can be effectively addressed by implementing the configurable retry mechanism on individual steps, ensuring a smoother operation even when errors occur.

note

The Retry option is only available on HTTP actions.

1. On the right hand side of your Step, click the icon.

2. Choose the error handling option, then simply toggle the Retry button.

3. Proceed by filling in the following parameters:

Parameter	Description
Number of retries	The number of retries. The minimum number of retries is 1 and the maximum number of retries is 5. The default is set as 1.
Interval- Exponential	The duration between each retry attempt. The Exponential Interval uses default logic where the exponential backoff starts at 200ms and multiplies by 2 each iteration.
Interval-Constant: Time between retries(in ms)	The duration in milliseconds between each retry attempt which is entered manually.
Retry on Status	The error codes that will trigger retries.

4. Then select the apply button.

Multiselect Step and Bulk Actions

The Multiselect Step and Bulk Actions feature allows you to select multiple steps at once in the Workflow editor and preform bulk actions on the selected step such as delete, copy and cut as well as dragging the selected steps to a new position.

Enabling the Multi-selection Step Mode

1. Initiating the Multi-selection Step Mode can be done in a few ways:

   • Selecting the checkbox icon on the top right corner of the canvas.

   • Command/control + clicking a step

   • Right-click and select the Select step from the step contextual menu.

2. Checkboxes will appear next the Workflow's steps replacing the run step buttons.

3. Select the steps by checking the box. The selected steps will be highlighted in blue for a clear selected indication. You can also use Shift and click on the mouse to select consecutive steps.

4. During the selection mode, a floating toolbar will appear towards the bottom of the screen, displaying the delete, copy, and cut bulk actions, the number of selected steps and a cancel button which will revert to the normal mode.

5. Upon choosing a bulk action for your selected steps, a notification pop-up will appear in the bottom-right corner. It will confirm the successful completion of the chosen bulk action and provide you with the option to revert it by selecting the "undo" button.

The Delete Bulk Action

The Delete Bulk Action allows you select multiple steps and delete them from the Workflow editor.

The Copy Bulk Action

The "Copy Bulk" action enables you to copy selected steps for pasting in either the same or a different Workflow editor.

note

• Upon selecting the "Copy Bulk" action, the copied steps will be outlined with dots, a visual cue that will stay until you perform one of the actions outlined in the leaving the multi-selection mode.

• By default, if you try to copy a step containing a "Send HTTP request" action with an invalid link, you will encounter an error and won't be able to copy the step successfully.

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• You can also paste the copied step(s) into a different Browser tabs.

• Copying and pasting a step in a different web browser is only compatible with Chrome. Other web browsers are not currently supported.

• The first time you copy a step in the editor, a popup will appear in the top-left corner asking for permission to let the Blink application "listen" to the clipboard.

• By clicking "Allow," you enable the functionality to copy and paste steps in a different Browser tab.

• By clicking "Block", you disable the functionality that allows you to copy and paste steps in a different Browser tabs.

• If you decide you want to enable the functionality at ay point you can:

  1. Go to Chrome settings.
  2. Select "Settings and privacy".
  3. Then "Site Settings".
  4. Under "Recent Activity", click "Clipboard Blocked".
  5. Scroll down to the clipboard icon and choose "Allow".
  6. Close your chrome settings and navigate back to your Browser tab where you copied the step(s).
  7. Click the reload button to apply the changes.

The Cut Bulk Action

The "Cut Bulk" action removes the selected steps from the Workflow editor, copies them to the clipboard, and enables you to paste them elsewhere on the same canvas or in a different workflow.

Leaving Multi-selection Mode

In order to exit the Multi-selection Step Mode and return to the original mode you can preform the following actions:

• Clicking on the cancel button on the floating selection element.

OR

• Clicking on the multi-select icon in the top-right corner.

note

Engaging in unrelated actions within the editor may close the multi-select mode.

Mouse and Keyboard shortcuts

• Right-clicking a step will open the step contextual menu.

• Holding down the Command key (for Mac users) or the Control key (for Windows users) and clicking on specific steps, will transition the canvas to selection mode and mark the steps as selected.

• Pressing Command/Control + C will copy steps.

• Pressing Command/Control + X will cut steps.

• Pressing Command/Control + V will paste steps from the clipboard to the bottom of the canvas.

• Pressing Shift+click will select all in-between steps from the last selected checkbox.