Overview

The Simple Filter action allows you to filter simple lists, particularly those comprised of primitive types, used within your process.

Parameters

• Input (required): List to filter (list<object>)
• Filter JSON Configuration (required): Configuration for filtering criteria in JSON format
• Output (required): Filtered list (list<object>)

Filter JSON Configuration

The JSON Configuration consists of several parameters:

{
	"MatchType":"Exact",
	"FilterExpression":"(RegEx)expression",
	"FuzzyAlgorithm":"Levenstein",
	"FuzzyThreshold":0.7,
	"SoundexDistance":4,
	"SimilarFirstNwords":1,
	"SimilarLastNwords":1,
	"KeepIfTrue":true
}

MatchType Types

Exact

An exact match requires validation (=) against the specified FilterExpression.

Similar

• Compares against FilterExpression considering:
  • Special characters: For example, "John-Doe" and "John Doe" are considered a match after removing special characters.
  • Phone numbers: e.g., "376-323-1111" and "323-1111" are considered a match.
  • Domain/URL: Ignores prefixes like "WWW" or "HTTP(s)://".
  • Email format: Matches emails with various representations like "@" or "[at]".

Fuzzy

Utilizes algorithms from Similarity Search to compare fields against FilterExpression. More details here.

Contains

Checks if FilterExpression contains the field or vice versa.

Soundex

Evaluates if two words are similar when spoken, based on a scale from 0 to 4.

SimilarWordMatch

Compares the first or last N words in the field with those in FilterExpression.

RegEx

Validates if the field matches the pattern specified in FilterExpression. The RegEx pattern must be JSON safe/encoded (e.g. by using test json_encode online - general PHP functions - functions-online).

Properties

FuzzyAlgorithm & FuzzyThreshold

• Only used when MatchType = Fuzzy. If MatchType is something else, those properties will be ignored so, they can be null or can even not be present.
• FuzzyAlgorithm needs to be one from this here, written exactly as in the link provided.
• FuzzyThreshold is a double between 0 and 1, where 0 means any match is accepted and 1 requires 100% confidence.

SoundexDistance

• Used only when the MatchType = Soundex and it can be set to 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4, where 4 means the words are very similar when spoken.

SimilarFirstNwords & SimilarLastNwords

• Only used when MatchType = SimilarWordMatch in which case at least one should be >0. If both are =0 then the SimilarWordMatch will not be executed at all since it does not make sense. If MatchType is something else, those properties will be ignored, so, they can have any value or can even not be present.

KeepIfTrue

• Determines if the record should be kept based on the match criteria. If set to true, the record will be retained.

Important Notes

• Matching algorithms operate only on primitive field types, not data structures.
• A row match is TRUE only if all matches are TRUE