Okta Workflows How-To: Iterate Over Items and Create a New List (Using the List – Map Card)

Okta Workflows is a no-code platform for automating identity processes. 

This blog post is based on a question asked during office hours or the #okta-workflows channel in MacAdmins Slack: How to take a data list, modify each record in a list, and continue to use the new list in the flow? 

Getting started

You have a list of users and need a new list where each user is listed as lastname.firstname. Perhaps you need this name format to create an account in another system. 

To start, this is the main flow: 

Using List – Map card

• The first card, Okta – List Group Members, gets all members (users) from the specified group
• The List – Map card, calls a helper flow to process the user list. The entire record (User) is passed to the helper flow. And, it returns a list (new list) that you can use in the rest of the flow
  • This is different from the For Each action that also processes a list, but doesn’t return a list back)
• In this example, the Flow Control – Assign card is used to display the returned list. It is used to show that you have a list that you can use in the rest of the flow

This is the helper flow: 

Helper flow that returns a value

• In the first Helper Flow card, the input is the current record (User)
• The Get Multiple card retrieves the First Name and the Last Name of the current user. You can also retrieve other fields
• The Text Concatenate card, concatenates the First Name, a period (.), and the Last Name
• The Flow Control – Return card, receives a new name in the lastname.firstnameformat and adds it to the new list. Once all the items were processed, the List – Mapcard (main flow) returns a new list. This new list is now available in the main flow

This screenshot shows one run of the helper flow where it returns one name in the lastname.firstname format: 

Helper flow run

This screenshot shows the main flow execution: 

Main flow run

The new list (from Assign card):

The new list with last.first format

If you are familiar with the List – For Each card, it processes list item but doesn’t return a value back to the main flow. The List – Map card, processes a list of items and returns a new list to the main flow.

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