Using References

Creating and using references saves you time when building your workflow. You create references to items such as documents, subsites, list items, forms and SmartObject results, and then reuse that information anywhere within the workflow.

In many cases, references are created automatically for you, but you also have the option to create your own. You can create multiple references and reuse them throughout the same workflow. References can contain one or multiple items, and you can use information from references to filter data and build rules. Lastly, you can use references to add content to an email, change the value of the folio, and set or update other properties.

Think of reference fields as placeholders that point to a SmartObject. While you are designing the workflow, the fields do not have any values. When you start an instance of the workflow, the workflow will replace the placeholder values of the reference with the actual data values from the referenced SmartObject record. The data values for the referenced SmartObject are retrieved every time the workflow instance uses the reference. In other words, should the data values for the referenced SmartObject record change, the workflow will always use the latest values for that SmartObject. For example: suppose you reference an Employee SmartObject in the workflow and use the Employee’s department name in the workflow. Whenever an instance of the workflow needs to read the Employee’s department, the workflow will retrieve the latest value of the Department from the Employee record referenced by the workflow. Should the Employee’s department change, the workflow will always use the latest value for the department whenever it needs to read the Employee’s department.

If you change the structure of the referenced SmartObject (for example if you add a new property to the SmartObject), the changes will only reflect once you update the reference in the workflow designer and redeploy the workflow, and only new instances of the workflow will be aware of the new property. Existing instances of the workflow will not be aware of the new property, because you must update the reference in the workflow designer and redeploy the workflow. This creates a new version of the workflow, and new instances of the workflow will use this new version. Any existing instances of the workflow will continue to use the older version of the workflow definition and therefore will not be aware of the new property added to the SmartObject reference.

For information on how to delete references, see Delete Reference.

References appear in the Context Browser on the Fields tab. From the Reference section, drag and drop the referenced information onto your workflow steps.

See the following resources for more information:

Let's look a few scenarios for creating and using references in your workflow.