How to open and return from a new flow with a Boomerang

We love boomerangs here at FlowEQ, and not just because they're fun to say. A Boomerang Steptype allows you to open another flow, and when you've finished, it brings you right back to where you left off in your previous flow.

Why would you want to do this? It's a great way to keep your flows sprawling out and instead use them as modules that you can connect together.

Example

Let's say you want to build a troubleshooting flow for your connected device. The issue might be hardware-related or software-related. Rather than have each of those troubleshooting trees in the same huge parent flow, you can use boomerangs to launch just your hardware or software troubleshooting child flows. When you're done, the Boomerang will bring you back to where you started to complete the rest of your parent flow. 

Note

Boomerangs cannot be used in a chain. If you use just one boomerang, it's fine. But if you use two or more, it won't return you all the way back to the beginning of the chain.

All boomerang types

All boomerangs have the same Title field and Automatically launch new flow fields

Title

We recommend using this field to tell your team that you're launching a new flow. If you check the Automatically launch new flow box, we recommend a title to explain what's happening since your team will only be able to see this title for a few seconds before the next flow starts.

Automatically launch new flow

To expedite the flow and reduce the number of clicks your team needs to make, you can select this checkbox to automatically redirect your team to the new flow when they reach this step, instead of requiring them to click a button in Sidekick to launch the new flow.

Here are where the three types of boomerangs differ: Single, Selected, and Dynamic.

Single

This boomerang is the simplest type, as it only sends your team to one other flow.

Select a new flow to launch

Use this field to select the new flow you want to launch. You can only select one and your team will not be given the chance to choose another.

If you want to give your team a choice of which flow to boomerang into, you'll want to use a Selected or Dynamic boomerang.

(Optional) Select step to boomerang into

If you want your team to skip certain steps and start at a particular step in your flow, you can use the window provided to select that step. The selected step will turn yellow. Once your team reaches the Boomerang step in your flow, they will be taken directly to the yellow step you selected. Please note that this feature is optional and your team can still start at the beginning of the flow by default.

Note: This option is not available in Selected or Dynamic Boomerangs. However, you can combine a Decision steptype before multiple Boomerang: Single steptypes to achieve the same effect.

Selected

This boomerang is similar to the Single boomerang, except it gives your team a manual choice of which flow to boomerang into. 

If you want to select the right flow for your team to boomerang into automatically, skip ahead to Dynamic.

(Optional) Rich Text to display prior to selection

Rather than just giving your team a list of flows to choose from, you can use this field to first preface that choice with a question or prompt for your team to answer. You can then write labels for each of the flow options so that your team can select the right one for the job.

Enter Values

• Order
  • Use this field to set the order of flow options as they will appear in Sidekick.
• Flow to Launch
  • Select the flow that will be boomeranged into.
• Label (Optional: Default is title)
  • Enter a custom label to represent the boomerang flow, or an answer to the question or prompt you gave in the rich text field. If nothing is entered, the full name of the flow will be presented in Sidekick.

When your team reaches this step in Sidekick, they will see your prompt up top, and then a different button for each of the flow options you have configured. When your team clicks on one of these options, they will be taken into that flow. And when that flow is complete, they will be returned back to the original flow. 

Dynamic

A Dynamic Boomerang can send your team to different flows based on criteria that you define. This is handy if you have a field in your CRM which you can use to automate the decision on which flow to boomerang into.

For each flow to choose from, you'll need to add a new criteria line for each.

Order

Use this field to decide the order of the flows to boomerang into.

Match Template

Use this field to pull in the field that contains the information you want to run a condition against. Use the ➕ button to select a field in any of your systems connected to FlowEQ.

Criteria

Select Equals or Contains from the dropdown. Equals require an exact match, case included. Contains does not require an exact match and is not case sensitive.

Value

Enter the value that should equal or be contained within the Match Template. You can hard code a value here, or again use the ➕ button to pull in a detail from your FlowEQ-connected systems.

Launched Flow

When your Match Template equals or contains your Value, use this dropdown to select which flow your team should be boomeranged into.

Example

• Let's say your team has two different products: Hoverboard and E-Bike.
• You already have two flows that create return shipping labels for these two products:
  • Create Hoverboard Shipping Label
  • Create E-Bike Shipping Label
• Your CRM has a ticket field called Product Name
• You want to automatically send your team to the right flow to create the right shipping label based on which product is shown in the Product Name field.

In this case, you would configure two different Criteria Rows for each of the different products:

1st Criteria Row

• Match Template = Select the Product Name field
• Criteria = Equals
• Value = Hoverboard
• Launched Flow = Create Hoverboard Shipping Label

2nd Criteria Row

• Match Template = Select the Product Name field
• Criteria = Equals
• Value = E-Bike
• Launched Flow = Create E-Bike Shipping Label

When configured like this, if the Product Name field contains "Hoverboard", the flow will automatically boomerang your team into the Create Hoverboard Shipping Label flow. If it says "E-Bike", it will boomerang into the Create E-Bike Shipping Label flow instead.