Automation Rule Operators
There are many operators available for use in expressions in automation rules. They are grouped by type and are listed below along with usage examples.
Boolean Operators
Section titled “Boolean Operators”- a or b
- a and b
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| a or b (e.g. a is true, b is either true or false) | true |
| a or b (e.g. b is true, a is either true or false) | true |
| a or b (e.g. a is false, and b is false) | false |
| a and b (e.g. a is true, and b is true) | true |
| a and b (e.g. a is false and/or b is false) | false |
Comparison – Equality
Section titled “Comparison – Equality”- value-a = value-b
- value-a != value-b
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| ’text’ = ‘text’ | true |
| ’text’ != ‘text’ | false |
| ” = ‘text’ | false |
| ’text’ = "" | false |
| ” = "" | true |
| ”a\“b” = ‘a”b’ | true |
| ’a\‘b’ = “a’b” | true |
| status = in_progress | true |
| status = assigned | false |
| team = ‘Database Administration’ | true |
| team = 9 | false |
| team.id = 9 | true |
| team.id = 12 | false |
Comparison – Less than, Greater than
Section titled “Comparison – Less than, Greater than”- value-a < value-b
- value-a <= value-b
- value-a > value-b
- value-a >= value-b
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| ‘a’ < ‘a’ | false |
| ‘a’ <= ‘a’ | true |
| ‘a’ > ‘a’ | false |
| ‘a’ >= ‘a’ | true |
| ‘a’ < ‘b’ | true |
| ‘b’ > ‘a’ | true |
| ‘a’ > ‘b’ | false |
| ‘’ < ’text’ | true |
| ‘text’ > ’’ | true |
| status < completed | true |
| status < registered | false |
| completed < status | false |
| registered < status | true |
| team < ‘Application Development’ | false |
| team < ‘Service Desk’ | true |
| ‘Application Development’ < team | true |
| ‘Service Desk’ < team | false |
| team.id < 100 | true |
| team.id < 1 | false |
| 100 < team.id | false |
| 1 < team.id | true |
Comparison – Contains
Section titled “Comparison – Contains”- value in array
- value not_in array
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| a in [a,b] | true |
| a not_in [a,b] | false |
| b in [a,b] | true |
| c in [a,b] | false |
| ab in [a,b] | false |
| ab in [] | false |
| ’’ in [] | true |
| ’’ in [a,b] | false |
| ’’ in [a,,b] | true |
| a in [ a , b ] | true |
| status in [in_progress] | true |
| status in [assigned, accepted, in_progress, waiting_for_customer] | true |
| status in [assigned,completed] | false |
| team in [Application Development,Database Administration,Service Desk] | true |
| team in [Application Development,Service Desk] | false |
| team.id in [8,9,10] | true |
| team.id in [11,12,13] | false |
| 11.0 in [11,12,13] | true |
| 11 in [11.0,12.0,13.0] | true |
| team.id in [8.0,9.0,10.0] | true |
| team.id in [8.1,9.1,10.1] | false |
Comparison – Similar to
Section titled “Comparison – Similar to”- * is the ‘contains’ operator
- ^ is the ‘starts_with’ operator
- $ is the ‘ends_with’ operator
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| ‘john.smith@proproduct.com’ *= ‘smith’ | true |
| ‘john.smith@proproduct.com’ ^= ‘smith’ | false |
| ‘john.smith@proproduct.com’ *= ‘john’ | true |
| ‘john.smith@proproduct.com’ ^= ‘john’ | true |
| ‘john.smith@proproduct.com’ $= ‘john’ | false |
| ‘john.smith@proproduct.com’ $= ‘proproduct’ | false |
| ‘john.smith@proproduct.com’ $= ‘proproduct.com’ | true |
Comparison – Presence
Section titled “Comparison – Presence”- value is_blank
- value is_present
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| team.name is_blank | false (as the team name is required as must contain a value) |
| request.custom_fields.my_date is_present | true, when the UI extension field “my_date” is defined and contains a non-empty value, false otherwise |
Formulas
Section titled “Formulas”- + is the ‘add’ or ‘concatenate’ operator
- - is the ‘subtract’ operator
- * is the ‘multiply’ operator
- / is the ‘divide’ operator
- % is the ‘modulo’ operator
Note that + acts as the ‘concatenate’ operator when the value to its left is a text string. Otherwise, it acts as the ‘add’ operator.
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 + 1 | 2.0 |
| 2 – 1 | 1.0 |
| 2 * 5 | 10.0 |
| 6 / 3 | 2.0 |
| 15 % 6 | 3.0 |
| 1 1 1 + 1 | 4.0 |
| 1 + 2 * 6 % 4 | 5.0 |
| ‘start’ + ‘_at’ + ’ field’ | start_at field |
| 1 + team.name | 1.0 |
| 1 + team.id | 8.0 |
| 2.0 + team | 9.0 |
| team + 3.0 | 10.0 |
| created_at + 3.days | 3 days after the creation date |
| team.id + ’ – ’ + team.name | 7.0 |
| ’’ + team.id + ’ – ’ + team.name | 7 – Service Desk |
| ‘{{team_id}} – {{team_name}}’ | 7 – Service Desk |
| created_at – 4.hours | 4 hours before the creation date |
| 5 / 5 | 1.0 |
| 5 / 0 | nil |
Path for Retrieving a Variable
Section titled “Path for Retrieving a Variable”An expression that retrieves a variable always starts from the record for which the automation rule is defined.
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| status | approved |
| workflow.status | progress_halted |
| created_at | 2017-09-12T14:00:00Z |
| planned_duration | 8 |
| workflow.tasks[first] | 1st task of the workflow |
| workflow.tasks[1] | 1st task of the workflow |
| workflow.tasks[last] | last task of the workflow |
| workflow.tasks[-1] | last task of the workflow |
| workflow.tasks[#20122] | task with ID 20122 of the workflow |
| workflow.tasks[1].custom_fields.name | the value of the UI extension field with ID ‘name’ from the workflow’s task |
| workflow.tasks[1].custom_fields.你好,世界 | the value of the UI extension field with ID ‘你好,世界’ from the workflow’s task |
| workflow.tasks[#20122].subject | Change controller approval |
| workflow.tasks[“Change controller approval”].id | 20122.0 |
| workflow.tasks[‘Change controller approval’] | 20122.0 |
| workflow.tasks[first].notes[first].text | the text from the first note of the first task of the workflow |
| workflow.tasks[first].notes[first].person.name | the name of the person who added the first note of the first task of the workflow |
Path for Retrieving a Collection
Section titled “Path for Retrieving a Collection”An expression that retrieves a collection always starts from the record for which the automation rule is defined, or makes use of the `find_all` operation.
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| cis | All cis related to the current task |
| workflow.requests[first].cis | All cis related to the first request of the workflow |
| cis.size | The number of CIs related to the current task |
| cis.count | The number of CIs related to the current task |
| workflow.tasks.select(status = registered) | The workflow’s tasks that have the registered status |
| workflow.tasks.reject(status = registered) | The workflow’s tasks that do not have the registered status |
| workflow.tasks.select(status = failed) + workflow.tasks.select(status = rejected) | The workflow’s tasks that have the failed status combined with the workflow’s tasks that have the rejected status |
| cis.empty? | true if there are no CIs linked to the current task, false otherwise |
| cis.any? | true if there is at least one CIs linked to the current task, false otherwise |
| cis.any?(status = in_production) | true if there are any CIs linked to the current task with an in_production status, false otherwise. Returns false when there are no CIs linked to the task. |
| cis.all?(status = in_production) | true if all CIs linked to the current task have an in_production status, false otherwise. Returns true when there are no CIs linked to the task. |
| cis.none?(status = in_production) | true if there are no CIs linked to the current task with an in_production status, false otherwise. Returns true when there are no CIs linked to the task. |
| workflow.tasks.select(category = approval).reject(finished_at != nil) | All approval tasks linked to the workflow that are not yet completed. |
| workflow.tasks.select(category = implementation).map(member) | All members of implementation tasks linked to the workflow. |
| person.permissions.detect(account = ‘wdc’).workflow_manager | Is the person a workflow manager in the widget data center account? |
Retrieving unrelated records
Section titled “Retrieving unrelated records”The following lookup functions are available to retrieve records that are unrelated to the record for which the automation rule is defined.
| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| find(person, ‘afanasenko.valery@proproduct.com’) | Afanasenko Valery |
| find(person, ‘afanasenko.valery@proproduct.com’).job_title | The job title of Afanasenko Valery |
| find(person, workflow.requests[first].custom_fields.email) | A person record based on the email address provided in the email field of the UI Extension of the first request related to the workflow |
| find(service_instance, 2334) | The service instance with id 2334 |
| find(service_instance, ‘Minsk Network’) | The Minsk Network service instance |
| find(ci, predecessors[first].custom_fields.ci_id) | Find the CI based on the ci_id that was chosen in a UI Extension of the predecessor task |
| find(ci, ‘unknown’) | nil |
| find_all(person, ‘Afanasenko Valery’) | An array of all people with the name Afanasenko Valery |
| find_all(ci, custom_fields.impacted_assets) | An array of all CIs chosen in a multi-suggest UI Extension field |
| search(ci, ‘SPARCS’).detect(status = in_production) | An array of all CIs that are in production, from a list of at most 50 cis that are retrieved using global search with keyword ’SPARCS”. |
String Manipulation
Section titled “String Manipulation”| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| ’ hello’.lstrip | ‘hello’ Removes leading whitespace. |
| ’hello ’.rstrip | ‘hello’ Removes trailing whitespace. |
| ‘hello’.start_with?(‘hell’) | true True if string starts with one of the suffixes given. |
| ‘hello’.end_with?(‘lo’) | true True if string ends with one of the suffixes given. |
| ‘table’.match?(‘bl’) | true True if pattern is matched in string. |
| s=‘foo’, s.include?(‘f’) | true True if self contains other string. |
| s=‘foo’, s.exclude?(‘t’) | true True if self does not contain other string. |
| ‘hello’.ljust(10) | ’hello ’ If integer is greater than length of string, returns padded string, left justified. |
| ‘hello’.rjust(10, ‘oh’) | ‘ohohohello’ If integer is greater than length of string, returns padded string, right justified. |
| subject.size | 28 Number of characters. |
| subject.length | 28 Number of characters. |
| ’ spacey string ’.strip | ‘spacey string’ Remove leading and trailing white spaces. |
| ’ spacey string ’.squish | ‘spacey string’ Replace multiple spaces with a single space and removes leading and trailing white spaces. |
| ’ spaceeeey ssstring ’.squeeze | ’ spacey string ’ Replace runs of the same character by a single character. |
| ‘desserts’.reverse | ‘stressed’ Flip the characters around. |
| ‘rservice’.upcase | ‘RSERVICE’ All capitals. |
| ‘RSERVICE’.downcase | ‘rservice’ All lower case. |
| ‘hI tHERE’.swapcase | ‘Hi There’ Lower case to capitals and vice versa. |
| ’ ’.empty? | true True when string is empty or only contains white spaces. |
| ’ ’.blank? | true True when string is empty or only contains white spaces. |
| ’ ’.present? | false True if string contains characters other than white spaces. |
| ‘break-me-up’.split(‘-’) | [‘break’, ‘me’, ‘up’] Split the string into an array of strings on the separator. |
| ‘break-me-up’.split(/[eau]+/) | [‘br’, ‘k-m’, ‘-’, ‘p’] Split the string into an array of strings on a regular expression separator. |
| ‘break-me-up’.slice(3) | ‘eak-me-up’ Take the string from the given index.md and onwards. |
| ‘break-me-up’.slice(-5) | ‘me-up’ Take the string from the given index.md and onwards. |
| ‘break-me-up’.slice(3,2) | ‘ea’ Take a fixed amount of characters from the given index.md. |
| ‘break-me-up’.replace(‘-’, ’ ’) | ‘break me up’ Replace all occurrences with another string. |
| ‘break-me-up’.replace(/[eau]+/, ‘*’) | ‘br*k-m*-*p’ Replace all occurrences of the regular expression with another string. |
| ‘break-me-up’.replace(/([eau]+)/, ‘*\1*’) | ‘br*ea*k-m*e*-*u*p’ Replace all occurrences of the regular expression with another string using capture groups. |
| [‘break’,‘me’,‘up’].join(’ and ’) | ‘break and me and up’ Concatenate the elements in an array with the provided separator. |
| ‘10.428571428571429’.to_number | 10.428571428571429 Convert the string to a number. |
Number Manipulation
Section titled “Number Manipulation”| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| 10.428571428571429.to_string | ‘10.428571428571429’ Convert the number to a string. |
| 10.428571428571429.round | 10 Round to a whole number. |
| 10.428571428571429.round(2) | 10.43 Round to the given number of decimals. |
Date & Time Manipulation
Section titled “Date & Time Manipulation”| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| now | >1.seconds.ago <1.seconds.from_now |
| today | >1.day.ago <1.day.from_now |
| 1.second.ago | >2.seconds.ago <0.seconds.from_now |
| 2.seconds.ago | >3.seconds.ago <1.second.ago |
| 1.minute.ago | >61.seconds.ago <59.seconds.ago |
| 2.minutes.ago | >121.seconds.ago <119.seconds.ago |
| 1.hour.ago | >61.minutes.ago <59.minutes.ago |
| 2.hours.ago | >121.minutes.ago <119.minutes.ago |
| 1.day.ago | >25.hours.ago <23.hours.ago |
| 2.days.ago | >49.hours.ago <47.hours.ago |
| 1.week.ago | >8.days.ago <6.days.ago |
| 2.weeks.ago | >15.days.ago <13.days.ago |
| 1.month.ago | >32.days.ago <27.days.ago |
| 2.months.ago | >63.days.ago <56.days.ago |
| 1.year.ago | >366.days.ago <364.days.ago |
| 2.years.ago | >732.days.ago <729.days.ago |
| 1.second.from_now | >0.seconds.from_now <2.seconds.from_now |
| 2.seconds.from_now | >1.seconds.from_now <3.second.from_now |
| 1.minute.from_now | >59.seconds.from_now <61.seconds.from_now |
| 2.minutes.from_now | >119.seconds.from_now <121.seconds.from_now |
| 1.hour.from_now | >59.minutes.from_now <61.minutes.from_now |
| 2.hours.from_now | >119.minutes.from_now <121.minutes.from_now |
| 1.day.from_now | >23.hours.from_now <25.hours.from_now |
| 2.days.from_now | >47.hours.from_now <49.hours.from_now |
| 1.week.from_now | >6.days.from_now <8.days.from_now |
| 2.weeks.from_now | >13.days.from_now <15.days.from_now |
| 1.month.from_now | >27.days.from_now <32.days.from_now |
| 2.months.from_now | >56.days.from_now <63.days.from_now |
| 1.year.from_now | >364.days.from_now <366.days.from_now |
| 2.years.from_now | >729.days.from_now <732.days.from_now |
| planned_duration.hours.from_now | >79.hours.from_now <81.hours.from_now |
| now.year | Year, e.g. 2019 |
| now.month | Month of year, e.g. 3 (March) |
| now.day | Day of month, e.g. 21 |
| now.hour | Hour of day, e.g. 19 |
| now.minute | Minute of hour, e.g. 45 |
| now.second | Second of minute, e.g. 12 |
| now.day_of_year | Day of year, e.g. 80 |
| now.day_of_week | Day of week, e.g. 4 (Thursday) |
| now.is_monday | Day is a Monday, e.g. false |
| now.is_tuesday | Day is a Tuesday, e.g. false |
| now.is_wednesday | Day is a Wednesday, e.g. false |
| now.is_thursday | Day is a Thursday, e.g. true |
| now.is_friday | Day is a Friday, e.g. false |
| now.is_saturday | Day is a Saturday, e.g. false |
| now.is_sunday | Day is a Sunday, e.g. false |
| now.utc | Same date time in UTC timezone |
| custom_fields.my_date_time.to_date_time | Convert string value of date time captured in a custom fields to a date time |
| now.in_time_zone(person.time_zone) | Same date time in timezone of person |
| now.in_time_zone(rule_account.time_zone) | Same date time in timezone of account in which the rule is created |
| now.in_time_zone(‘Minsk’) | Same date time in given timezone |
| now.iso8601 | Same date time in iso8601 format |
| duration(created_at, now) | Number of minutes between creation and now |
| template.support_hours.target_at(now, 8.hours, ‘Minsk’) | A target time using the support hours of a request template, a start time and a duration, for the Minsk time zone |
Predefined Values
Section titled “Predefined Values”| Expression Example | Result |
|---|---|
| updated_by | The person who triggered the execution of the automation rule by updating the record to which the automation rule belongs. |
| rule_account | The account in which the automation rule is defined. |
| related_note | The note created at the moment the automation rule was triggered. If no note was created the value is empty. When the “On note added” trigger is used, this value is always present given the automation user has permissions to read the note. |
| related_internal_note | The internal note created at the moment the automation rule was triggered. If no note was created the value is empty. |
| true | true |
| false | false |
| empty | nil |
| nil | nil |
| null | nil |
Ternary Statements
Section titled “Ternary Statements”| Expression | Result |
|---|---|
| true then ‘yes’ else ‘no’ | ‘yes’ |
| !true then ‘yes’ else ‘no’ | ‘no’ |
| is_assigned then teamA.id else teamB.id | teamA.id if is_assigned is true |
| true ? ‘yes’ : ‘no’ | ‘yes’ |
| !true ? ‘yes’ : ‘no’ | ‘no’ |
| is_assigned ? teamA.id : teamB.id | teamA.id if is_assigned is true |
New records (only for tasks)
Section titled “New records (only for tasks)”| Expression | Result |
|---|---|
| new(task) | New empty task in rule account |
| new(task, ‘Finalize the change plan’) | New task based on the given template |
Previous Field Values
Section titled “Previous Field Values”A field identifier can be used to look up the value of this field. For example, to retrieve the current value of a workflow’s Subject field, the following expression can be used:
- workflow.subject
It is also possible, however, to look up a record’s previous field value, i.e. the value
that the field had before the record was saved and the automation rule was triggered.
This is done by adding _was after the field identifier. To do this for the Subject
field of a workflow, for example, the expression becomes:
- workflow.subject_was
String Interpolation
Section titled “String Interpolation”It is possible to use expressions within expressions. However, an expression can only be used if it is already defined, so the order of the expressions is important. The example below works, because the expression ‘note’ is defined before it is used in the expression ‘hello_note’.
- note: notes[last]
- hello_note: “hello {{note}}”
It is possible to reorder expressions by dragging them up or down to ensure that each expression is defined before it is used in another expression.