Catalytic is now PagerDuty Workflow Automation

Batch process using Table rows

Combine the power and simplicity of mail merge with full automation.

Key Concepts

  • Creating a Word template
  • Formatting fields for use in template
  • Populating the template
  • Converting to PDF
  • Sending for e-signature

Autogenerated Transcript

Welcome back to Catalytic.

In our last video, we went more in depth into how data tables work and how you can use Workflow actions to look up, transform and load data into tables.

In this video, we’re going to be going over a powerful feature within Catalytic the ability to create a batch process.

We’ll also be discussing how parent child Workflows function and how fields pass between the two.

A batch process is a Workflow that will do the same sequence of steps you’ve defined for every row in a table or spreadsheet.

This allows you to create some powerful Workflows.

And the example we’ll be building today will be batching through a table to send a webform to every active user on a Catalytic instance, to submit their mailing address, then store this information in a new table.

Before we build out a Workflow, let’s just navigate to the data tab to set a few things up first.

Since we’ll be storing the user’s information, that is their email and submit a mailing address in a new table, let’s go ahead and get that created first.

So I’m just going to create a new data table.

And I’ll just call it male and our chess is less than 10.

So we know exactly what it’s for.

So let’s create it.

Now, I’m just going to add two columns, the first one is just going to be for the email address that will capture and then the second column is just going to be for the mailing address that is submitted.

And that’s all we have to do as far as configuring this table goes.

Now that we’ve created our table that will be storing the information, let’s go ahead and check out the table that we’ll be batching through in order to send a webform to every active user.

So that’s going to be the application table for users.

As we discussed in the last video, this is a default Catalytic table available on all instances that will show you every user who has access to that instance and the data associated with them.

What a process will do is go through every row of this table, grab the email address, and then send an email to that user with a webform so they can fill out their mailing address.

Once a webform is submitted, the users email and submit a mailing address will be stored in our new currently empty table.

Now that we have our data elements up and know what our flow will be, let’s go ahead and navigate over to the Workflow section and make a new one from scratch.

So I’m just going to create a new Workflow from a blank template.

And I’ll go ahead and give it a name that’s fairly obvious.

I’m gonna keep the description everything else as is.

But again, feel free to fill those out if you’d like to.

And I’ll go ahead and create our Workflow.

So we’ve created a Workflow.

And for this process, I’m not going to be setting up any triggers are form fields, I’ll just be using the testing feature to demonstrate how it functions.

in test mode, all emails will be sent to the user testing unless otherwise specified.

So this will ensure my colleagues don’t get spammed as I’m testing and demonstrating this process.

The first action we’ll be adding is going to be the batch action, which is officially under the tables category and called Start Workflow for each row.

But you can also just describe it as a batch and Catalytic will understand and grab the correct step.

So I’m just going to input batch over table.

And Catalytic found the right batch action to use.

Now let’s go over how to configure this.

The most important part when configuring is choosing the correct option under Workflow.

This is how we tell the batch what process to do with each row of the table we’re batching through.

Build in line means that we can be building our process as a child Workflow within this batch.

So we can still add steps and configure fields like a normal Workflow.

The other options in the drop down allow you to point to an existing Workflow.

So if you’ve already built a process that you want to use as your child Workflow for the batch, you can reference it here and it has the ability to be dynamic with field references.

Now we just have to select the correct data table to use.

And I’m going to keep it by name because again, we’ll be batching through our application table which already exists in the Data tab.

So let’s go ahead and find that.

The last required field is the batch name, which you can make dynamic by referencing a field or column in the table being batched through I’m just going to keep it as something simple and we’ll keep the rest of the fields blank.

So this is pretty on the nose but it makes it easy to keep track of in case you have multiple batch fields within your process so you know which one is running.

Let’s just go over with the last couple of fields are though.

Batch owner will let you assign the owner of the child Workflow or each batch process that occurs.

By default the owner will be the owner of the parent or main Workflow.

Deadline lets you toggle whether or not to inherit the parent Workflows deadlines.

Complete immediately when toggled to true will complete this step as soon as all batch Workflows have been started.

Whereas false, we’ll keep this step active until all sub Workflows have been completed.

Now that we’ve gone ahead and set up our batch, let’s just save the step.

You’ll notice that within the batch action, you have the ability to add steps.

And this is the child Workflow.

The parent Workflow is the process outside of the batch, and you have the ability to pass field references into the child Workflow from the parent flow.

So you’ll still have access to data in fields within the batch itself.

Again, this process will send an email to every user on your instance with a webform to fill out.

So let’s go ahead and add our first step into the process.

And that’s just going to be send a webform.

Before I go any further, I want to pause and talk about field references within a batch.

The columns in the table that we are batching through become fields that are able to be referenced in the child Workflow, but you have to initialize it so Catalytic knows what fields are available.

How do we go about this? Let me show an example.

In our application table, we’re batching through email is a column.

But if I try and put that field reference in the to address, I won’t be showing the fields in the drop down that appears.

If I go ahead and test this batch step, though, Catalytic will become aware of the table it’s batching through.

So let me just go ahead and do that.

So I’ll just go ahead and test this step.

And we’ll go ahead and start it.

Now again, this is just a we can initialize the actual batch process.

I’m going to exit out of this and refresh the page.

And now clicking into our batch.

If I go ahead and expand the global fields on the right side, you’ll notice that we have more fields that are able to be referenced.

And again, these are all of the fields or columns that are available in that table that we are batching through.

You can test the step itself when referencing a table that exists in the Data tab.

However, if you’re batching through an instance table or one that is created in your Workflow, then you’ll have to test the entire Workflow to initialize the batch so the table is properly created and passed into the batch step.

Now, going back into the send a webform step, I can copy and paste any of the field references from the right or do they handle by reference to show all of the fields available.

The fields that become available specifically within the batch will have the header from the instance, meaning that it’s a column within the table that we’re batching through.

As a side note, if you know the column name and field reference, you can still set up the steps inside the child Workflow without initializing the batch.

Just make sure that you write out the entire field reference and end it with closed handlebars.

After running the flow, if the field references were correct, they will change to be the highlight of blue that we see here.

Now I’m just going to add a form field of mailing address

I’ll go ahead and fill out the rest of the required fields with some basic information to configure the email and web form we’re sending out.

So I’m going to go ahead and fill out this information and feel free to make it whatever you want or what makes sense for the process that you’re building.

Okay, and that is all of the information that I’m going to go ahead and configure for this webform.

So now I’m just going to save our step.

Now that that’s set up, I’m going to add another step to add the submitted information to our table.

So let’s look for the Add a Row step.

I’ll just go ahead and describe that process of add a row to a table and Catalytic add the correct action.

And now I’m just going to configure it similar to the Add row action in video eight.

So I’m going to be referencing the table and columns by name because they already exist in the Data tab.

So let’s go ahead and search for that.

Our lesson 10 table and the columns we want are the email and mailing address.

The values to add are going to be the email from the instance or the email of the person taken from the application table that was sent a webform.

So let’s go ahead and find that.

And then the value submitted for mailing address, so I’ll just go ahead and use that from our send a webform I’ll copy that mailing address reference, I’m going to make sure that I put this in quotations as well, so we can keep any of the special characters that might be in there.

This is specifically because mailing addresses might have a comma.

And that would act as a delimiter.

And cut off the rest of the information from actually filling out that column in our table.

Great.

Now that the batch process is set up, I’m just going to save and close this step.

And then I’ll go ahead and collapse the batch step.

This just helps to easily organize your Workflow, you can always expand it to view the child Workflow inside of the batch process.

I’m going to go ahead and test this process.

And in test mode, all tasks and emails are sent to the person who initiated the Workflow.

So even though the application table has several users on it, I’ll be the only one getting emails.

So I’ll go ahead and test it.

And I’ll just start this Workflow.

So we can see that so far, there’s been 111 instances started from this batch.

And that’s because again, an email was sent to every user on that application table.

But in this case, all of the emails are just going to go into my inbox.

So let me hop over there.

And let’s check it out.

So hopping into my inbox, we can see most of the emails have come in.

And I’m just going to go ahead and fill out two of these web forms, we can add data to our table.

So I’ll click get started and fill out the first one.

So similar to last time, I’m going to put in one of my neighbor’s addresses, and I’ll go ahead and submit that.

And I’m going to navigate back to my inbox.

And I’ll go ahead and fill out the second form or the second web form that was sent to me over email with another address as well.

So I’ll just go ahead and fill out that mailing address.

And I will submit this second form.

And now that those have been submitted, let’s navigate over to the table we created to store this information.

And you can see that the values that were added, again, because this is in test mode, emails are sent to myself, but the original email for who it would have been sent to populates this table.

Then we have our mailing address, which was captured completely commas in all because of the quotations we put around that field reference.

Going back to our Workflow, we can see that it’s still running because not all of the instances created in a batch have been completed.

Clicking into the batch though, we could see all of the instances that have been started and compute where each one is in the process.

So we can see the two bones that were completed.

And if we go ahead and actually click into that batch from the process name, we’ll be able to see exactly what happened in the child Workflow inside of that batch.

And this completes our lesson on batching through a table.

In the next video, we’ll go over pre populating a webform for a change of address process, where based off of the user selection on a web form, their address will be updated or kept as is.

Thanks for tuning in.

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