Advanced action flows

Advanced flows add loops, richer branching and more complex data handling. Capability that needs a reason.

Advanced flows add loops, richer branching and more complex data handling. Capability that needs a reason.

What is added

• Working through a list, such as several orders for one customer.
• Deeper branching, with more conditions and nesting.
• Handling structured responses rather than single values.
• More sophisticated error handling.

The question to ask first

Should this live in Zendesk at all?

A flow that loops over records, transforms data and calls three systems is a piece of software. Built in a visual editor, it has no version control, no test suite, and no way to review a change before it goes live.

Sometimes that trade is worth it, because the alternative is a project nobody will fund. Often the honest answer is that the logic belongs in the system that owns the data, with Zendesk calling one clean action.

If you do build it here

• Document it outside Zendesk. What it does and why, where a colleague will find it.
• Name every step for what it does.
• Keep one flow to one purpose. Two purposes means two flows.
• Test every branch and write down which you tested.

Watch for it becoming load bearing

A flow that started as a convenience and now processes a hundred cases a day is part of your operation. At that point it needs an owner, a monitor and a plan for what happens when it fails, in a way a convenience does not.

It also needs watching for a reason that is easy to miss: actions draw on an allowance of action credits. A loop is where that bites, because a flow working through a list calls the action once per item. A hundred cases a day with five items each is five hundred calls, not a hundred, and nobody sized the allowance for that.

See also

• Building an action flow
• When you need an app and when a webhook is enough
• Managing custom actions