Business Actions

A 'business action' is a piece of business logic that can be executed to manipulate data or perform an action. Business actions define the operations that can happen during a variety of system processes and events. For example, at approval of an object, within a workflow (on entry to a state, exit from a state, on the transition between tasks, or when a deadline is met), as part of an import process, or from a bulk update process.

While business actions can be created using JavaScript, simple operations are available as described in the table below.

Important: Business actions can be used to modify data and/or take action, while business conditions should be used to validate data only (not to modify data). For more information, refer to Business Conditions. Alternatively, business functions will produce an output based on non-changing input parameters. For more information on business functions, refer to the Business Functions topic.

Error Messages

Exceptions can be thrown during business rule execution, for instance by deliberately instantiating and throwing a localizable message, as defined in the Localized Messages for JavaScript Business Rules topic. When this occurs, processing is stopped and any updates are rolled back. There are use cases where this will streamline the writing and execution of business rules by mixing validations and data updates, especially if the conditions include data, as it appears after the updates have been made. However, it is strongly recommended that, whenever possible, conditions (which are read-only) and actions (which contain updates) be separate, and that any validation-related error messaging is performed only in the business condition. This will ensure the best performance. Additionally, there are situations where conditions can be evaluated dynamically to provide on-the-fly feedback to users prior to performing an expected action (e.g., enabling / disabling action buttons based on condition results). Keep in mind that when an action encounters an error message, any included updates will not be run until the action is actually performed.

Business Action Operations

To add a business action to a business rule, refer to the Specifying a Business Action Operation topic.

Menu	Action	Description
Assets	Create Assets from URL	Works on a product level and looks at a specified attribute which contains asset file URLs. If a file URL is found, the asset is downloaded, created, and an asset reference is created according to the configuration. For more information, refer to Configuring Asset Download - Business Rules and Bulk Updates in the Digital Assets documentation.
	Send Derived Event for Assets	Raises the Asset Keywords Event. Send assets to the Google Cloud Vision API and returns keywords, but does not set them. For more information, refer to Configuring Asset Analyzer - Setup Group Items and Business Rules in the Digital Assets documentation.
	Set Asset Keywords	Handles the communication to and from the Google Vision API. Send assets to the Google Cloud Vision API, then and returns and sets keywords. For more information, refer to Configuring Asset Analyzer - Setup Group Items and Business Rules in the Digital Assets documentation.
Attribute values	Merge Attribute Values	Merges the value of one attribute into another attribute. For more information, refer to Business Action: Merge Attribute Values.
Data quality	Generate Match Codes	Generates match code values as a part of a business action. For more information, refer to Business Action: Generate Match Codes.
Data quality	Standardize address	Overwrites the existing standardized address. Additionally, can be used to generate Loqate address hash values, renew address validations older than a specified number of days, and enable CASS validation for US addresses. For more information, refer to Business Action: Standardize Address.
References and Links	Add Attribute Link	Adds a link to an attribute without additional configuration. For more information, refer to Business Action: Add Attribute Link.
	Add Reference	Adds a reference of a specified type to a target. For more information, refer to Business Action: Add Reference.
	Add Referenced By	Adds a reference of a specified type from the specified source to the object that is executed as target. For more information, refer to Business Action: Add Referenced By.
	Automatic Classification	Classifies the selected objects automatically according to a set of rules. For more information, refer to Business Action: Automatic Classification.
	Remove Attribute Link	Makes it possible to remove a link to an attribute without additional configuration. For more information, refer to Business Action: Remove Attribute Link.
	Remove Reference	Removes references to a specific target or all references of a specific type. For more information, refer to Business Action: Remove Reference.
	Set Product to Classification Link Type	Assigns a new object type and classification link type to the selected product. For more information, refer to Business Action: Set Product to Classification Link Type.
Workflow	Claim	Claims the task of the current object in the specified workflow and state. For more information, refer to Business Action: Claim.
	Initiate Items in STEP Workflow	Initiates the object the action runs on in a specified workflow. For more information, refer to Business Action: Initiate Items In STEP Workflow.
	Remove object from STEP Workflow	Removes the object the action runs on from the specified workflow. For more information, refer to Business Action: Remove Object from STEP Workflow.
	Trigger STEP Workflow Event	Triggers a specified workflow event. For more information, refer to Business Action: Trigger STEP Workflow Event.
Execute JavaScript		Enables you to use the methods available in the STEP Public Java API. For more information, refer to Business Action: Execute JavaScript.
Overlap Analysis		Compares records in a pre-defined format with all record of the same object type by specifying a matching algorithm. For more information, refer to Business Action: Overlap Analysis.
Reference Other Business Action		Allows the node to reference other business actions without additional configuration. For more information, refer to Business Action: Reference Other Business Action.
Send Email		Sends email to specified recipients. For more information, refer to Business Action: Send Email.
Send Republish Event		Sends a republish event to an event queue processor. For more information, refer to Business Action: Send Republish Event.
Set Attribute Value		Sets a specified attribute value for the object where the action is executed. For more information, refer to Business Action: Set Attribute Value.
Set Name		Sets the name of the object that the action runs on. For more information, refer to Business Action: Set Name.
Set Object Type		Changes the object type the action runs on. For more information, refer to Business Action: Set Object Type.
Set Workflow Variable		Enables assignment of workflow variables. For more information, refer to Business Action: Set Workflow Variable.
Start Translation		Initiates an asynchronous translation via a business rule. For more information, refer to Business Rules for Asynchronous Translations.
Value Generators	Assign a Value	Based on the configuration of the Value Generator, a value is assigned to the selected attribute. For more information, refer to any of the specific Value Generator topics included in the Value Generators topic.
Value Generators	Release a Value	Based on the configuration of the Value Generator, a value is removed from the selected attribute. For more information, refer to any of the specific Value Generator topics included in the Value Generators topic.