Workflow Editor: Data Service

In a workflow, services refer to various functionalities or tools that can be integrated to perform specific tasks or checks.

For example, Alloy workflows can include services like:

• List Service: This service allows you to add lists of approved or denied PII to your workflow. You can configure actions based on whether an entity’s PII is on the allowlist or denylist, such as skipping running services or decisioning an auto-denial.
• Identity Element Velocity: This service checks the velocity of identity elements, which helps in detecting potential fraud by analyzing the frequency and speed of identity usage. These services can be added to a workflow to automate and streamline various processes, such as identity verification, fraud detection, and decision-making based on predefined criteria.

These two services are examples of Alloy first-party services — services built and owned by Alloy. Third-party services are also available to be added to the workflow as well.

Adding services to a Workflow is one of the first key steps in building the rules that lead to an application decision.

This article will cover:

• First-party vs third-party services
• Identifying a Service node in a Workflow
• Adding a service
• Overview of the Service Node Panel
  • Threshold
  • Dependents
  • Data Routing
  • Options

First-party vs third-party services

First-party services are integrations that were built and owned by Alloy. These services can be added at any time and used free of charge. Examples of these Alloy services are the List service, Identity Element Velocity, and more.

Third-party services are integrations that require a contract with a third-party vendor to utilize their data. These services can only be added to your Workflow once a contract has been signed — either directly with the vendor or resold through Alloy, if supported. Each request to these vendors typically incurs a usage cost.

Identifying a Service node in a Workflow

Service nodes in a workflow are denoted by a green node with a cube icon.

Adding a service

To add a service to run in your Workflow,

1. Click the Add menu on the top right corner.
2. From the Add menu, select Service.
3. Select the service from you’d like to add to your Workflow. Only the services enabled for your dashboard and compatible with your Workflow type will appear as options. The modal is multi-select; select as many services as you wish by clicking on the selection. You can expand the dropdown to view all services or use your keyboard to search.
4. Click the X to delete the service if you selected it, but then changed your mind.
5. Once you’re done, click the Add Service(s) button. This will add the green Service nodes to the left-most column of your workflow.

Once a Service is added to the Workflow, it must still be configured with credentials that allow Alloy to make API requests to the vendor. Navigate to the Service Settings to configure the credentials if you have been provided credentials directly from the vendor. Otherwise, reach out to your Customer Success Manager to kick off an implementation for a new data service.

Once a service has been configured, it will not have any threshold logic yet, which means by default these services will always run when this Workflow is called. To add additional threshold logic, click here to learn more about adding child actions.

Overview of the Service Node Panel

Threshold

The Threshold menu allows additional lines of logic or rules to determine when the node executes. Learn more on adding additional threshold rules here.

Dependents

The Dependents menu will shows all follow-up actions that rely on the current node. This means that these subsequent actions require the current node to execute and return data before they can proceed. Learn more about the Dependents tab here.

Data Routing

Data Routing allows you to take the output of a service in your Workflow and make it the input into another downstream service on the Workflow.

Certain data services may support Data Routing as a means of transferring data from one service to another. Data Routing tab will only appear for services nodes that support data routing. When available, there may be one of two options within the Data Routing menu: Incoming and Outgoing.

Options

The Options menu allows the Data Service to be modified only within the scope of the Workflow it’s being used in. This is helpful if you have custom credentials based on certain demographics. The following options are available to be modified:

• Display Name: The name of the service that displays in the Workflow and within the “Data Sources” section on any evaluation that runs through the Workflow.
• Service Failure Handling - if data is missing: This setting determines what the Workflow should do if the data service is missing any data the Workflow requires. The default is always “Exit Workflow” which will cause the evaluation to exit with a Partial status. The other option is “Do not run service” which will skip running the service entirely, but this could impact how other nodes dependent on this service run as well.
• Base Url - The API endpoint Alloy is hitting.
• Service Credentials - While a data service may be configured with service credentials at the entire Account-level within the Service Settings, it can also be modified within the scope of the Workflow only. By clicking Override Credentials and saving the changes, the overridden credentials will only affect the service in this given Workflow. Each Data Service will have different credential requirements.