Working with Types: Formula, Fields and Values

Segmenting audience using Workflow nodes
Criteria Filter and Criteria Split Workflow Actions

Configuring nodes like Criteria Filter and Criteria Split involves selecting from various data types. This article elucidates these types—formulas, fields, booleans, strings, and numbers—and their application within node configurations.

Configuring criteria conditions

Criteria Filter and Criteria Split nodes allows for the configuration of criteria using various data types. 'Field' or 'Formula' can be selected to define the source of the value for comparison, and an appropriate Value is then assigned. An Operator determines the relational condition, such as 'less than' or 'equals'. The type on the right-hand side—be it ‘Field’, ‘Formula’, ‘String’, ‘Number’, or ‘Boolean’—indicates the nature of the comparison parameter, complemented by the corresponding Value input for the condition.

Formula

Formulas allow you to calculate expressions in real-time, when criteria is being evaluated during an experience.

Formulas can be entered on the left or right hand side of an operator when the ‘formula’ type is selected. When the formula Value field is selected, a handy formula picker dropdown will appear to help you write formula expressions:

The following formulas and arguments are currently supported:

DateAdd("interval", number, instant)

Returns the result of adding the number of intervals to the given instant (e.g. add 5 days from now). An instant refers to a specific point in time that serves as a reference for calculating timestamps. This could be the current date and time or the start of an experience.

• interval — SECONDS, MINUTES, HOURS, DAYS
• number — The number of intervals to add (e.g. 5). This can be negative.
• instant — The instant to add to, representing a precise moment in time. This can be the current datetime returned by Now() or the starting point of an experience returned by ExperienceStart().

Now()

Returns the current datetime instant

To add 5 days to the current date and time, you would use DateAdd("DAYS", 5, NOW()). This formula calculates a new datetime that is exactly five days from the exact moment the formula is evaluated.

ExperienceStart()

Returns the instant the experience started (when the flow triggers for an individual recipient)

If you need to add 10 days to the moment an experience began, such as a user starting a trial or subscription, you would use DateAdd("DAYS", 10, ExperienceStart()). This helps in scenarios where actions or reminders need to be scheduled based on the start of an experience.

Examples

Use Case	Formula Expression	Operator	Comparison Value	Description
Follow-up reminder	DateAdd("DAYS", 30, Now())	less than or equal to	Current date	Triggers a reminder when the current date is equal to or has surpassed the 30-day follow-up date.
Subscription renewal	DateAdd("DAYS", -10, ExperienceStart())	greater than or equal to	Subscription expiry date	Initiates a renewal reminder when the current date is within 10 days before the subscription expiry date.
Post-trial engagement	DateAdd("DAYS", 14, ExperienceStart())	equal to	Trial end date	Engages users 14 days after their trial started, aligning with the trial end date for follow-up actions.
Offer expiration	DateAdd("HOURS", -24, Now())	less than or equal to	Offer expiry date	Checks if an offer expired within the last 24 hours, potentially to offer an extension.
Membership anniversary	DateAdd("YEARS", 1, ExperienceStart())	equal to	Current date	Annually checks if today matches the anniversary of the membership start date to trigger celebratory or renewal actions.

Field

The Field type allows referencing data directly from fields stored in your system, similar to how merge fields work. Begin typing in the input to search and select from available fields, which dynamically populate based on your system's data schema.

For example, using the field City from your system of record, you could use the field type and add a value (for instance, Sydney) to filter recipients based on whether their city is Sydney or not.

String

The String type is used for text comparisons. Each character in the text is compared one at a time.

For example, you can specify exact text to match against a field's value. For instance, the City field might be paired with the string value Sydney to target users specifically in that city.

When using operators like "greater than" or "less than" in string comparisons, the order may not be what you expect. For example, "2" is greater than "11", and "Cat" is less than "catalog" because uppercase letters sort before lowercase.

Boolean

The Boolean type supports true or false values, making it ideal for fields that store binary data, such as isActive or emailVerified. This type is essential for filtering recipients based on Boolean field conditions.

Number

The Number type is utilised for numerical comparisons and can be used with fields that store numeric values, such as age, quantity, or thresholds. For example, setting a Number type to 1234 allows you to target recipients based on numeric criteria like account numbers or identifiers.

Usage scenario: Offer expiry example

As an example, we can use Criteria filter to create an offer expiry period in the flow.

When a recipient replies to the original outbound SMS, the reply will come back into Lumary's Engaugement Console, and the split will check whether it was received before the expiry - i.e. was it received 2 days before or 2 days after the original messages sent?

In the criteria builder:

1. LHS Select type = formula

2. Enter the formula = DateAdd ("DAYS", 2, ExperienceStart())

   (2 days from when the experience started)

3. Select operator = less than
4. RHS Select type = formula
5. Enter the formula Now()

Essentially this checks that the inbound message was received less than 2 days ago and the recipient has replied, they can continue through the the ‘success’ path of the split.