Cards in flows
Each card represents one specific step in a flow. Within a card, there are input and output fields.
-
Input fields accept values.
-
Output fields are the values produced by that card. Other subsequent cards can then use these fields as input.
Configure a connection to the third-party application and select any relevant Options. This is required before you can access the Input and Output fields of an action card.
The ability for an action card to accept inputs and then return a different output is one of the most powerful features of Workflows. You can chain multiple cards together and map outputs to inputs. This enables you to build flows that transform data, use logic to decide on next steps, or perform follow-up actions using that data.
Input fields
The input field values determine how the action or function card should proceed.
For example, the Gmail Send Email card has input fields for To, Subject and Body. For the text Replace function, there are input fields for the string to look in, what text to look for, and what text to replace with.
Output fields
A flow assigns values to the output fields after running an event, action, or function.
For example, the text Replace function card has a field called result text that contains the new text string composed after the function makes the replacements. For the New Issue event in Jira, there's an output for the Issue ID of the newly created issue.
A key feature of Okta Workflows is this ability to map the output field from one card to the input field of another card.
For example, you can drag the Email Address output from a Marketo Read Lead action card and drop it onto the input field of an Office 365 Mail Send Email action card. Every time the flow executes, the flow uses the email address for that specific customer as the destination address for the email.
Other card options
The bottom of each card has other buttons to set or modify options. Different cards can have a selection of the following choices:
-
Help: Click the
icon to view card-specific help content. -
Test This Card: Allows you to provide sample input values and see the resulting output. This option is available only for action and function cards.
-
Schedule Options: Control how often to check for new data or run the flow. This option is available only for non-webhook application events and scheduled events.
-
Endpoint Settings: Choose a security level and provide the URLs used to invoke the endpoint. This option is available only for API Endpoint event cards.
-
Filter Fields: Filter the view to only display fields that match the filter text. This option is useful for cards with many fields, such as a Salesforce record.
-
Duplicate: Creates an exact duplicate of the current card and adds it to the flow. This option is useful for flows that need the same card with slightly different fields, or for a card with many edited options that you don't want to recreate.
There's also a gear icon containing Other options:
-
Edit card: In customize mode, you can rename or reorder fields, or even rename the card. See Customize a card.
-
Choose fields: Set which fields appear on the card. This is useful for cards that have possibly hundreds of fields, but only a few that you need.
-
Run When: Set your event to trigger once for all new records, once for each new record, or only when no new records are found. This option is available only for application events. See Set data exchange options.
-
Error handling: Show error options, such as automatic retry or running an error handling flow if the card fails. See Set error handling for cards in flows.
Save cards and execute flows
After you alter any card settings, click Save at the top of the Flow builder page to save all changes in the flow. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+S (Windows) or ⌘+S (macOS) to perform this action.
Click Run at the top of the Flow builder page to run your updated flow. When you run an updated flow, any pending changes you've made to the cards in the flow are automatically saved. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER (Windows) or ⌘+SHIFT+ENTER (macOS) to run the flow.