Bots are designed to automate repetitive tasks and streamline workflows. To automate specific actions based on data and values in a form, document, or metadata within a document, use triggers and conditions to define when a bot should run, thereby tailoring the automation to your specific process. Conditions are a set of criteria that must be met for a bot to perform an action. In this article, we will explore the different types of conditions and provide examples of how they are used.
Bots have 5 types of conditions function using different operators:
Data from fillable fields in a document
Triggers a bot to perform an action based on the data from fillable fields in the document. For example: suppose you have a form where customers can submit feedback about your product or service. You want to automatically send a follow-up email to customers who rated your service as "poor" or "average". To do this, you can set up a bot with a document condition that checks the rating field in the form and triggers the follow-up email if the rating is "poor" or "average".
Date and Time
Triggers a bot to perform actions based on a specific date or period. For example: Suppose you have a monthly report generated by your team and want to automatically save this report to a specific folder in Google Drive on the first day of each month. Select the Current day of the month > Is equal to > Set the the desired date.
Package
Trigger actions based on the package name, metadata, or package tags. Particularly useful for automation linked to specific package types, naming conventions, or tags.
Example 1: Automating actions for documents that auto-start and include "started automatically" in their package names. You could create a bot condition using the "Like" operator to detect patterns within package names.
Example 2: Automating actions for packages tagged with "Urgent Review" to trigger immediate notifications or escalations. Similarly, packages tagged "Finance Approval" could be routed to the finance team, or "High Priority Customer" tags could trigger priority handling.
Start parameters
Triggers actions based on input parameters provided when initiating the workflow execution. For example: automatically executing specific bot actions if the workflow initiation parameters match predefined criteria, such as a parameter indicating a priority request.
By combining different conditions with logical operators like "And" and "Or," you can create even more complex triggers.
In setting up bot conditions, operators are utilized in conjunction with specific fields or metadata to create logical expressions that trigger the bot to perform a particular action. These operators allow for the formulation of conditions that guide the bot's behavior based on the criteria defined within the logical expressions.
Operator | Description |
Is empty | The field or value being checked does not have any data or content. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot if a specific field in a form is not filled. |
Is not empty | The field or value being checked does have data or content. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot if a specific field in a form is not empty. |
Is equal to | It is used to activate a bot if a specific field matches a particular value that is entered manually. For instance, a bot can be triggered if the value in a specific field is "Approved." |
Is not equal to | This criterion is used to trigger a bot when a certain value is not equal to a specified value. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot if a certain field is not equal to "Rejected". |
">" (greater than) | The field or value being checked is greater than a specific value. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot if the value in a specific field is more but not equal to 10. |
"<" (less than) | The field or value being checked is less than a specific value. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot if the value in a specific field is less than 5. |
"=" (equal to) | The field or value being checked is equal to a specific value. This is similar to "Is equal to", but with the "=" sign, you can check if two fields or values are equal. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot if the value in one field is equal to the value in another field. |
"<=" ("less than or equal to) | It is used to trigger a bot when a certain value is less than or equal to a specified number. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot if a certain field is less than or equal to 10. |
“>=” (greater than or equal to) | It is used to trigger a bot when a certain value is greater than or equal to a specified number. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot if a certain field is greater than or equal to 100. |
Like | This criterion is used to trigger a bot when a certain value matches a specified pattern. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot if a certain field contains the word "invoice" anywhere in the field. Here is an example of how to set up the Rename workflow instances during signing process bot using the "Like" operator :
Whenever a document is submitted with a “Recommended product-other text” field that contains the word "invoice" anywhere in it, the bot will be triggered and perform its designated action. Keep in mind that the "Like" operator is case-insensitive, so it will match patterns regardless of the letter case. |
After | The condition is used to trigger a bot action after a specific date or time has passed. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot to send a reminder email to a signer "after" a certain date has passed. |
Until | The condition is used to trigger a bot action until a specific date or time period has passed. For example, you could set a condition that triggers a bot to stop sending reminder emails to a signer "until" a certain date has passed. |
These operators can be used in combination with other conditions to create more complex trigger conditions that allow bots to perform specific actions based on the data and values in a form or document. It's important to note that some operators may be specific to certain types of conditions. For example, the 'Is empty' and 'Is not empty' operators are commonly used with field value conditions, while the 'After' and 'Until' operators are typically used with date conditions.