Create a Mirror Tool

[kcgreen]

It would be handy to have a tool that mirrored another specified tool in the workflow.  I frequently use the same regex or filter configurations in multiple parts of my workflow.  If I could just update one of those tools and have every other one where I want the same logic applied to automatically update, that would make things easier. 

Users would just have to enter the tool ID of the tool they want mirrored.  

[SeanAdams]

Hey @kcgreen - you've ignited my curiousity on this.

Are you able to add some more detail to this - are you thinking that a tool would actually be a shadow copy or a connected clone of another where you update one and all update?

If I've understood then we'd also need some UI changes so that if someone tried to amend the settings on the mirrored tools (or the clones) it would have to stop you in some way.

I've not seen an idea like this on the community so very curious about your thinking and how this could work / look!

[kcgreen]

HI @SeanAdams.  Thanks for considering my idea.

I propose they be connected so that if a user updates the master version of the tool, it updates anything set to clone that tool.  Here's a screenshot of a workflow I built out this week.  The two red circles have identical regex and the two blue circles have identical filters.  I frequently updated both regex and filters as I discovered what worked well and what didn't.  Each time I updated the regex, I had to update both tools with the same updates.  Ideally I would have just updated one and the other would have automatically updated.  

I originally was thinking the tools would be an exact clone but as I was crafting a mock-up to share, I realized it might be handy to allow users to select another field to apply the same logic to.  If that makes the tool too tricky to develop, users can work around that by renaming fields as necessary to make the clone work.

Here's a mock-up of how I envision it working:

[SeanAdams]

Very interesting - and I can see the need - especially in large & complex flows.