Outcomes are the final result of an evaluation after an application runs through a Workflow. Like Thresholds, outcomes are determined by a series of conditions, often reflecting the risk of the applicant. A Denied outcome indicates that the combination of tags set on an evaluation flag the applicant as high risk or fraudulent, whereas an Approved outcome indicates a healthy applicant with low risk. Outcomes on their own don’t do anything, but the data can flow to a Bank’s system to result in an application opening a new account, or can flow to the next step in a Journey.
This article will cover the following topics:
- How Outcomes are Processed
- Default Outcome
- Adding Additional Outcomes to the Panel
- Deleting Outcomes
- Editing Outcomes
How Outcomes are Processed
Outcomes in a Workflow are evaluated sequentially from top to the bottom using if/else if/else logic. The first outcome to meet its threshold criteria is selected, and no further outcome rules are processed. At this point, the evaluation has completed its run through the Workflow.
If an evaluation does not meet the logic for any of the listed outcomes, it will receive the default outcome. Therefore, every Workflow must have a default “else” outcome, which gets configured first before any other outcomes. It’s best practice to set the default final “else” outcome to “Manual Review” or a catch-all custom outcome like “Exception.”
If there are no outcomes configured in the Workflow, a single evaluation can still run through the Workflow. However, the completed evaluation will return a Pending
outcome instead of an actual outcome. Additionally, if a Workflow is configured into a Journey without an outcome, it will trigger a validation error, indicating that the Workflow needs an outcome to connect to a terminal outcome. To resolve this, the Workflow logic will need to be edited to add at least one outcome.
Consider the following example, which presents a set of simple outcome rules and an explanation on how the Workflow would process them:
- Denied: The top-most, first outcome is the “Denied” outcome, which contains several criteria to evaluate. If an evaluation meets all the listed criteria, it finishes the Workflow with the “Denied” outcome and no further outcomes are evaluated. If not, the Workflow moves to the next outcome.
- Approved: The second outcome is the “Approved” outcome. If the criteria for the “Approved” outcome are not met, the Workflow proceeds to evaluate the next outcome in the panel. If it is met, the evaluation finishes the Workflow with the “Approved” outcome.
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Manual Review: The final outcome in this example is the “Manual Review” outcome and serves as the default outcome — as denoted by the
Default
flag. This outcome is required to have no conditions, because it serves as the final “else” outcome, which catches any evaluation that does not meet the criteria for the previous outcomes. If an evaluation reaches this point, it is marked as “Manual Review” and completes the Workflow.
Default Outcomes
The Default Outcome is required to be set up first before any other Outcomes have been added, though it can later be changed, if needed.
The Default Outcome serves as a catch-all or fallback should an evaluation not meet the logic for any of the outcomes that appear higher on the order. Therefore, it’s best practice to set the default final “else” outcome to “Manual Review” or a catch-all custom outcome like “Exception.”
Adding a Default Outcome to the Panel
If the Workflow does not show an Outcomes panel on the right-edge of the Workflow yet, then it means no outcomes have been configured yet. A default outcome must first be configured by following the steps:
- Click on the Add drop-down menu.
- Click Outcome.
- A new default outcome “Manual Review” will be added, and you will automatically be taken into focus mode in the Outcome panel.
- The default outcome can be changed at any time following the steps under Changing the Default Outcome.
Changing the Default Outcome
Once a default outcome has been added following the steps under Adding a Default Outcome to the Panel, it can be changed to a different default outcome.
- With the Outcome panel open, locate the “All evaluations will be decisioned to” text.
- Click the underlined outcome that follows. It will be highlighted in yellow upon hover.
- In the drop-down list, select the new outcome to be set as the default.
The original default outcome will be fully replaced, so it will need to be re-added to the Outcome Panel if it should be part of the outcome logic.
Alternatively, once there are at least two outcomes configured in the Outcome panel, the default outcome can be swapped for another default outcome within the Outcome panel.
- Next to the colored node with the Outcome name, click the vertical ellipses (⋮) menu.
- Click Make Default Outcome.
The new outcome will become the default, and the outcome which had been the default outcome will automatically get deleted (it will need to get re-added if it is to be used elsewhere in the outcomes logic). The default outcome is required to be a catch-all outcome, and therefore cannot have any threshold rules. Note that once this action is performed, it cannot be undone.
Adding Additional Outcomes to the Panel
Once the default outcome is added, additional outcomes can be added. There are two methods for adding new outcomes to the Outcomes panel:
Via the Outcomes Panel
- Open the Outcome panel by clicking on any outcome in the in Outcome panel on the far-right edge of the Workflow.
- Click + Add Outcomes.
- Select an outcome from the drop-down list.
- The drop-down results can be narrowed down by typing the name of the outcome.
- If you exit out of the drop-down before an outcome has been selected, click the cursor over the text “type to search outcome.”
- If an outcome was selected and needs to be changed, click the outcome name after the sentence “Then Evaluations will be decisioned to.” The outcome name will be highlighted in yellow on hover, indicating this field can be changed.
- Before the outcome can be saved, it must be linked to at least one threshold. Hover over the desired node that should be linked to this outcome. On hover over the node, a blue link icon will slide out.
- Click the the blue link icon to add it to your outcome.
- Continue the process of linking thresholds until all desired thresholds for the outcome are added. Any linked thresholds will show a blue line flowing from any linked nodes to the outcome. Any thresholds not linked to the outcome will appear greyed out.
- Once complete, click Add to complete adding the outcome.
Via the Threshold Panel
Note: If there is no Outcome panel on the right-edge, it must be added following the steps under Adding a Default Outcome to the Panel. The first outcome cannot be added via the Threshold panel. You will see that the option is disabled and there is a tooltip direct you to use the “Add” menu to add an outcome.
- Add a new dependent node with the desired threshold logic
- After the threshold is built, an action must be selected. Locate the text that says "Then tag...". Click on the "tag..." portion, which will highlight in yellow on hover.
- From the drop-down list, choose "decision to an outcome" to set this as the action for the node.
- Click Save.
- Once saved, the threshold rules will be transferred to the Outcome panel with the selected outcome.
- Outcome rules can be edited at any point to add to re-order the outcomes or add additional thresholds.
Deleting Outcomes
If an outcome has been mistakenly added, the following steps outline how to remove it. Removing an outcome cannot be undone, and if removed by mistake, will need to be rebuilt.
- Next to the colored node with the Outcome name, click the vertical ellipses (⋮) menu.
- Click Delete.
- The outcome will be deleted right away with a “Deleted the action” confirmation banner.
Editing Outcomes
Now that some outcomes have been added, the outcomes themselves may need to be edited further, such as: configuring additional threshold rules to determine what qualifies an evaluation to receive a certain outcome, reordering the outcomes, or removing rules altogether.
This section will cover how to edit outcomes further:
Adding and Adjusting Threshold Logic to Outcomes
The Outcome panel contains a Threshold editor that works in the same way a node’s Threshold editor does. The following will cover some specific high-level tips on adding threshold rules to the Outcome panel, but for a deeper dive into using the editor, read further on using the Workflow Threshold Editor.
To add additional lines of logic to a given Outcome:
- Set the focus mode to the outcome you’d like to edit by clicking on the outcome. Once clicked, the entire outcome and ruleset will be highlighted in blue.
- Hover over the nodes in the Workflow which you want to add to that Outcome’s logic.
- On Hover, click on the blue link icon that slides out. This will link the node as a dependent to the outcome.
- Continue these steps until you have added all desired logic to all outcomes you wanted to update.
Another way to add additional lines of logic is to use the option that adds a new line above or below. This will duplicate the first row of logic as a new row, and then this row can be edited. Any part of the threshold logic can be edited by clicking on a highlighted element and selecting a new choice from the drop-down.
Once the logic has been added to the Outcomes, you may want to delete any unwanted rules. See how to delete threshold logic here. Unlike with tag nodes, outcome threshold rules can be deleted even if there is only one line.
Reordering Outcome Order
Outcomes are not firmly set in the Outcome panel in the order they’ve been created. For example, the “Denied” outcome may have been added to run after the “Approved” outcome, but the new preference is to run the “Denied” outcome first to knockout bad applicants first.
- Next to the colored node with the Outcome name, click the vertical ellipses (⋮) menu.
- Click Increase precedence.
- The outcome will be moved up the order by one spot.
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