Pass data between two steps

Usually you would just use mappings on a Step to pass data from previous Steps to it as described in Field Mapping.

If you need to access information from a previous step to use within Script and don’t actually want to include it within the API call that Step will make, one option is to pass it using a standard Field Mapping, and then remove it from the call before it’s made.

Passing a single value #

Passing a single value to make it accessible in Script can be as simple as mapping it to an available field which you’re not already using.

Let’s say you want to access a Contact ID from Step A, in script in Step B. In Step B, you might have a field that’s not required for your particular integration, such as a “Description” field you could map that to:

Then in Script on Step B, you can use a before_action event handler function to remove it from the Request (so it’s not actually included in what Cyclr sends to an external system) and perform whatever action you needed:

function before_action(){
	var contact_id = method_request.description;
	delete method_request.description;

	// Do something with contact_id.

	return true;
}

If there isn’t an appropriate field, you may be able to add a Custom Field for that, as described here: Add custom fields.

You will likely still want to delete the field from the method_request object after you use it, as above.

Passing multiple values #

If you have more information to pass between Steps, it may make sense to add multiple custom fields. If there are a lot of fields however (an array perhaps), you have another option – passing all the values as a single, long string.

Part 1 – Stringify the values in Step A #

In the response from Step A, you’ll need to stringify the value(s) you need and add this to the response.

function after_action_paging(){
	method_response.string_of_fields = JSON.stringify(method_response.array_to_shrink);
	return true;
}

You will need to add a custom field to the response of Step A to hold this string. In the example above, the field location of this custom field would be string_of_fields.

Part 2 – Parse the values in Step B script #

First, map the value to a field in Step B. As above, you may need to create a field to temporarily hold this value (in the example below, the field is named string_from_step_A)

You’ll then need to JSON.parse the string in script:

function before_action(){
	var values_from_step_A = JSON.parse(method_request.string_from_step_A);
	delete method_request.string_from_step_A;

	// Access values_from_step_A as if it were a JSON array again.

	return true;
}