Gate

The Gate action enables advanced Sequencing and Flow Control scenarios in iWorkflow.

The following scenarios are possible with the Gate action:

• Exit the workflow reporting success
• Exit the workflow reporting failure
• Jump to a specific step
• Exit the workflow or jump to a step only if a template expression returns true.

Input	Output
None	Any (JSON) (Passthrough) Expression Output (string)

Understanding how it works

Without an Expression

If no expression is provided, then the Gate action will cause the workflow to perform the selected action:

• Success – The workflow stops in a “success” state.
• Error – The workflow stops in an “error” state.
• Go to Step – The workflow will execute the specified action next, skipping over any actions in between.

With an Expression

If a template expression is provided, then the Gate action is only applied if the template expression returns true. Otherwise, the gate is skipped over (the action returns Success and continues to the next step).

• Activation Expression evaluates to true:
  • Success – The workflow stops in a “success” state.
  • Error – The workflow stops in an “error” state.
  • Go to Step – The workflow will execute the specified action next, skipping over any actions in between.
• Activation Expression evaluates to false:
  • Action Success – The gate action is marked as successful, and the next action in the workflow sequence is run.

Effectively, if an activation expression is provided, and it does not evaluate to true, then the gate action does nothing and the workflow continues.

Gate action status

The gate action itself always succeeds, therefore the Step Sequencing settings can’t be applied to this action.

Note: If an invalid template expression is entered into the Activation Expression field - for example, entering {{ invalid_template will cause this individual action to fail. This example is invalid as it contains a syntax error.

Visual flow indicators

When a gate is used, visual indicators show possible flow routes for the workflow. For example, for a gate that always quits the workflow returning success:

Or, if a gate is set up with an expression and may cause the workflow to exit reporting failure:

Properties

These properties control the behavior and structure of the Gate action:

Name	Type	Templatable	Notes
General Workflow Action	Choice: Success Error Go to Step	No	Choose what should happen to the workflow when the gate is executed.
Activation Expression	Text	Yes	(Optional) If specified, this gate action will only activate if the supplied template expression is true or 1 - otherwise, the gate is skipped and execution proceeds to the next action.
Expression Output Property	Text	No	(Optional) To store the resulting value that was parsed from the Activation Expression field, specify a property name here. The parsed value (e.g. true or false) will be written to this property.