Context, trigger and iterator rows

[Bainar]

Given that Context, trigger and iterator rows are key to automation, could you please write a knowledge article about them?

I also note that the Iterator row does not have a definition in the glossary.

Thx

[AndrewB]

@Bainar I agree.

If it helps, **context row ** is whatever =thisrow() returns at a given moment. The tricky part is that the context can change within an automation, so that thisrow() in one step can return a different value than thisrow() in another step.

The trigger row is only used in Sheet Automations, but refers to the table row which was associated with the start of the automation. If you have an automation that starts when a row is added to the table, that new row is the trigger row. It is also the initial context row.

If you then add a step, and open the Run Options, you'll see a place to Repeat a step for each row returned by a filter expression. This is kind of abstract, but pretty powerful, but if you enter a filter there, you are then temporarily shifting the context row. That one step will run once for each row returned by the filter, and for each of those iterations, that row will be the context row. If this sounds confusing, that's because it is. But! If you can master this technique, you can do some really crazy stuff in Honeycode... like write an automation that deletes all rows that contain a specific value in a column.

[Alyssa]

Hi @Bainar, thanks for your post!

Our knowledge center has an article that speaks to context rows, trigger rows, and iterators, which you can check out here: Triggers & Actions. There's definitions of terms and different builder tips throughout the article which may be helpful.

However, I'll still submit a request to our content team to expand on the topic. I also saw that iterator or iterator row is not in the Honeycode glossary, so I will reach out to our team to update this as well.

Also, thank you @AndrewB, for expanding on this! All great info.

Let us know if there's anything else that would be helpful to add to our content.