Boolean Helper

Overview

Oftentimes, you want to make a decision based on data you got in a previous step. This can be done with the Boolean Helper. Comparison types like greater, smaller, etc. are explained below. It's possible to compare different values like a reference with a static value. See this table

Actions

The Boolean Helper has only one default action - Make boolean-like comparison.

In the screenshot below, you see a typical example of where and how to use a boolean helper:

To get started, simply enter the data value you want to compare to in Value A and the to be compared with the value in Value B. As for the Comparison Type select the one that suits your use-case. The boolean helper fully supports our Jinja2 syntax, so you can dynamically insert values for comparison.

Comparison Values

You can either select two relative values in Value A and Value B, meaning you can reference data from a previous step of the automation flow, or you can enter static data. E.g. in the example screenshot above, you can see Value A is a relative reference to a previous step indicated by the Jinja parenthesis {{ }}. Value B on the other hand, has just the word "true" which is static and not a reference.

These are the possible combinations:

Comparison types of the boolean helpers

The boolean helper has many comparison types for values:

• greater - can be applied to any number or datetime format

• smaller - can be applied to any number or datetime format

• equal - can be applied to any number or datetime format

• greater_equal - can be applied to any number or datetime format

• string_is - can be applied to any string

• string_begins - can be applied to any string

• string_ends - can be applied to any string

• string_includes - can be applied to any string (not visible on the screenshot below, but is in the app)

Screenshot from the app:

Boolean helpers in Loops

Boolean helpers are often used as part of loops, when there is a larger list, dict or array of data, where each data record has a particular information based on which the boolean helper can make a decision and do something.

Example

Let's suppose you have a list of users who contacted you on your website and depending on whether they already exist, you want to send a different email to them:

Advanced Data Comparison

Thanks to Jinja, you are able to do a lot of different data comparisons with the boolean helper. Let's go over a few of them:

Length of a list

To figure out the length of a list, you can use the Jinja Builtin Filter | length:

{{ my_list | length }} will return the length of a list. An empty list will always have a length of 0. So by comparing the length against a number of you choosing, you can either ensure that a list has at least one entry (>0), or that it meets a specific length requirement you have.

Checking if a string is empty

If you like to check whether a variable returns an empty string, you have to set Value B to {{ "" }}. In this example, it is checked that a my_variable is not an empty string. If my_variable is an empty string it will return false.

Checking that a variable is defined

{{ my_variable is defined }} will return either True or False, which you can compare against by using the "equal" comparison type.

Checking that multiple variables are defined

You can chain multiple tests together in a single Jinja statement and return some conditional value. If you want to check that, for example, 2 of your variables are defined before the flow proceeds, you can use the following statement:

{% if var1 is defined and var2 is defined %}
  True
{% else %}
  False
{% endif %}

Then simply compare against True with the equal comparison, and your flow will only go along the TRUE arrow when both values are defined.