Using Goto Statements in a Workflow

Workflows are one of the most powerful features of Gimmal Discover. They provide a flexible canvas where clients articulate their business rules for managing electronic information. One of the challenges to workflows, however, is their inherent flexibility also introduces a degree of complexity. For clients who have a programming background, this is often not a significant problem. However, if you are new to the idea of using a set of structured steps to perform a task, Discover workflows can be daunting.

This article reveals one of the shortcuts you can use when creating a workflow; a Goto step. Goto is widely used in most programming languages as a way to pause a flow, jump to another step to perform a function, and then return and resume the flow that was in progress. Sounds a bit complicated, doesn’t it? But in reality, the process is quite simple. Let’s walk through an example to provide some context.

Using Goto in a Workflow

In the file-based workflow shown below, the author wanted to test each file for the presence of different types of PII. In this case, the file would be checked to see if it contained a Credit Card number, Social Security number, or an address. A Goto statement is perfect for this type of evaluation. Here is a snapshot of the file sequence in the workflow. At this point, the workflow is examining each file (in whatever folder is being processed):

The Goto statements (shown in pink on the diagram) will cause the workflow to pause that examination, jump to another sequence to perform a separate test (i.e. check for a Credit Card) then return and resume examining the file (in this example performing additional Goto’s to check for the presence an SSN or an address) as detailed below:

The actual Goto step for checking the Credit Card is shown below. Notice that there are no additional instructions needed to return to the ‘calling’ step, this happens automatically.

If you have questions about using the Goto step in a workflow, please don’t hesitate to contact your Gimmal support team at support@gimmal.com.

First Published January, 2025