Introducing Puzzle's Entities & Attributes feature — a groundbreaking feature designed to give you the ability to document how every endpoint across all your tools are associated to your operational processes.
This feature empowers system builders to make confident, informed changes, reducing the risk of errors and downtime. With a clear and comprehensive snapshot of your entire automation landscape, maintaining and updating complex systems has never been easier.
Feature Benefits
Easily Search Endpoints Usage: Visualize where endpoints are used without digging through every automation, saving you time and reducing guesswork.
Confident System Changes: Make updates with confidence by seeing how fields interact across your automations, minimizing the risk of downtime and errors.
Streamlined Process Visualization: Easily assign and track where endpoints are used within your visual process diagrams, providing a clear, organized view of your systems and helping you make informed decisions during updates.
Definitions
This feature is based on the Entity-Relationship (ER) model, which helps show how data is organized in a system. An Entity is a thing or object, like a contact, company, order, or product, that you want to track.
Definition: An Entity is a thing or object. For example, in a CRM there are likely Entities like Contact, Company, Order, or Product, that you want to track.
Each Attribute describes details about the Entity, like a contact's first name or a product's price. In system diagrams, entities and their attributes help map out how different parts of your system are connected.
Definition: An Attribute is a property of an Entity. For example, if the Entities are Student and Course, relates attributes would be Student_ID, and Course_ID.
Refer to the visual below to understand how Attributes are related to Entities.
Step-by-Step Guide to use Entities & Attributes Feature
With these straightforward steps, you’ll be able to leverage the full potential of the Entities & Attributes feature. Follow the guide below to easily track where endpoints are used across your processes. If you prefer an interactive tour, visit this link to watch a step-by-step walkthrough of the Entities & Attributes feature.
1️⃣ Adding Entities to a Tool
1️⃣ Adding Entities to a Tool
🛠️ In your Workspace, go to the Tools section.
🔎 Select any of the tools that are current on your Tool Canvas, and find the database icon on the tool's sidebar.
🖱️ Click Add Entity to add a new Entity onto the specific tool.
📝 By default the Entity name will be set to 'Untitled' — to change the name click on the blue ✏️ icon to update the name.
2️⃣ Adding Attributes to an Entity
2️⃣ Adding Attributes to an Entity
✅ Next, you'll click on the blue arrow to expand the Entity and you'll see the Add Attribute button.
🖱️ Click Add Attribute to add a new line item within this Entity
📝 By default the Attribute named is 'Untitled' — to change the name of the attribute click the input field, erase the contents, and type in the new name of the attribute.
🔎 Select the Attribute 'Type' from the dropdown of options.
Single-Line Text
Multi-Line Text
Phone Number
Single Checkbox
Multiple Checkbox
Dropdown Select
Radio Select
Date Picker
Number
File
Tag
Formula
Email
ID
URL
User
Lookup
💡 Notice the indicator on the Attribute '0 Steps' — this value will show you how many steps this Attribute is associated with within the Workflows canvas.
3️⃣ Adding Attributes to an Entity in Bulk
3️⃣ Adding Attributes to an Entity in Bulk
🖱️ Click the '📝' icon on the Entity to open the bulk attribute modal
⚡ Copy a list of Attributes and paste the values in the modal's input.
🌟 We recommend using an export file from one of your systems to retrieve the list (typically in .xls or .csv format).
🖱️ Click 'Save Entity' to automatically add Attributes in bulk
🔎 Select each Attribute's 'Type' using the dropdown selector.
4️⃣ Tagging Attributes on Steps in the Workflows canvas
4️⃣ Tagging Attributes on Steps in the Workflows canvas
✅ Next, go to the Workflows tab and select a step.
In the step's sidebar there are two ways to associate Attributes to the step.
Tagging the Attribute in the Notes section — within the step's notes section your can '@' tag the attribute by typing the name of Attribute and selecting is from the dropdown that appears in the text editor. This is the fastest way to tag Attributes.
Manually associating Attributes — within the step's information sidebar, you can use the '+' on the Attributes divider found under the Notes divider — and searching to select the attributes in the modal.
🚨 Important: If you don’t see the Attributes section in the Step Sidebar, you may need to enable it first.
How to Enable Attributes in Step Sidebar Configuration:
Go to Workspace Settings in Puzzle.
Navigate to Step Sidebar Configuration.
Toggle ON the Attributes input.
Click Save, and your Step Sidebar will update automatically.
Now, when you open a step, the Attributes section will appear, allowing you to tag and track Attributes seamlessly.
5️⃣ Filtering Workflows by Attributes
5️⃣ Filtering Workflows by Attributes
✅ Once you've documented your Attributes across your Workflow canvas, you can use the Attribute as a filter in the List View.
Open the List View in the Workflows canvas to view all your steps in a table view.
Use the Attribute filter criteria to easily filter the step table to only show the steps that involve a specific Attribute. This level of depth in your documentation makes fixing automations a breeze!
Conclusion
As system complexity grows, the Entities & Attributes feature will continue to evolve, offering more ways to simplify your process management. With future enhancements, users can expect even greater visibility and control over their automations, helping organizations avoid downtime and errors.
Puzzle remains committed to providing tools that enable efficient and reliable system changes, making it easier than ever to maintain smooth operations. The possibilities are endless, and Entities & Attributes is just the beginning!