How to use values from the triggering record

A workflow that creates "New repair to look at" forty times is worse than useless. The same workflow creating "Repair 118, Priya Raman, sole separation" is a working queue. The difference is dropping values from the triggering record into what the workflow writes.

How do you insert a value?

With a placeholder in double braces, written as {{trigger.field}}, wherever text is accepted.

Each step's options panel names what it Reads and what it Gives, which is how you find the right name for a field rather than guessing.

Where can you use them?

• A task's title and description. See How to create tasks, records and links from a workflow.
• A notification's message. See How to notify someone from a workflow.
• A field you are setting on the triggering record.

What makes a good title?

Enough to act on without opening anything.

Compare "Urgent repair" against Urgent repair, {{trigger.customer}}, {{trigger.fault}}. The second is a task somebody can triage from a list, which is where most people read tasks.

Put the record's own reference in as well when it has one. Somebody looking at the task in a week needs to find the record it came from.

What makes a good message?

The same rule, plus the reason it is being sent.

Fabric trial {{trigger.name}} was approved tells production what happened. "Fabric trial approved" makes them go and look for which one.

Do placeholders work everywhere?

They work in text. They are not a way to reach a different record: everything available is on the record that set the workflow off.

Every step in a workflow reads and writes that one record, which is the constraint to design around. See How to choose a trigger.

How do you check one is filling in correctly?

Run the workflow and open the Runs tab, then read what the step actually did. A created task is shown with its real title, so you can see whether the value landed.

One thing to know while reading a run: a Notify step shows its message as configured, with the placeholders unfilled. The message that went out had the values in it; the run simply records the setup rather than the filled text.

For created tasks, Open the task takes you to the real one, which is the definitive check.

What if a value is empty?

The placeholder produces nothing, and you get a title with a gap in it.

Use fields that are reliably filled in. A field that is optional on your Object will sometimes be empty, and a title reading "Repair, , sole separation" is the result.

Where the field matters that much, make it required on the Object itself, per Add a field and pick the right type.