Understanding Bindings

Bindings are essentially a way to pass variables between steps in a job or from outside of the job into a node in the job. For example, you can bind to the output of one node in a job so that you can react to it inside the other node. Frequently, users might want to import the output of some other node into their node. Then they can do something with that data that is coming into the node, such as make a decision if a value coming in is greater than some number or perform IF and then branching. They might also want to increment it and pass it on to the next node.

For another example, you might check a return code in an Expression node from some previous node and then start a different job if the return code is nonzero. Note that you can bind only to nodes that are in your own flow. You cannot bind to nodes that are in some other parallel and totally unconnected flow in the same job.

You can use the Bind To Input option in the context menu to help you with work with bindings, particularly when doing control actions such as acting on the value or incrementing it. Right-click a node in an orchestration job flow, and click Bind To Input in the pop-up menu.

The existing inputs in the node are listed at the top of the submenu. You can click an input to see a list of the available outputs from the previous node in the orchestration job flow. Then you can designate the appropriate output as the source value for the selected input.

You can also click New Input in the Bind To Input submenu to add an input to the selected node.

Finally, you can click Import and Bind To in the submenu. This function enables you to import a job variable or node output that is not present in the node and bind it to the node.

You can also perform these same functions in the Inputs tab in the properties pane for the node. For more information, see Understanding Inputs and Outputs.