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Text Ranges in Decision Matrices
If your matrix has considerable data, use ranges to keep the matrix small. With text ranges, you can concisely specify a range of acceptable values in a matrix column instead of listing individual values.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer Editions for clouds that have Business Rules Engine enabled |
You want to assign a group to users based on the letter that their last names begin with. Here’s how to set up the columns.
Here's how you can set up the matrix:
| Input Data | Output Data |
|---|---|
| Last_Name_Starts_With (Text) | Group_Assignment (Text) |
| A | Group 1 |
| F | Group 2 |
| L | Group 3 |
| R | Group 4 |
| W | Group 5 |
The Last_Name_Starts_With is a text range column. Each value in the column defines the start of a range. Each subsequent value represents the start of a new range, and therefore, is excluded from the previous range. The column represents these ranges:
- From A to E
- From F to K
- From L to Q
- From R to V
- From W to Z
According to the input condition in the matrix, here are the group assignments for some sample last names:
- Fowler: Group 2
- Olson: Group 3
- Bates: Group 1
- Zimmerman: Group 5
| ACADPLAN | StudentLastName (Text) |
|---|---|
| AMS_BA | A |
| AMS_BA | S |
| HTLHBS | J |
In this example, there’s invalid data in the text range column. That’s because this setup attempts to define different sets of ranges for StudentLastName depending on AcadPlan (AMS_BA: A–R, S–Z; HLTHBS: J–Z). Because the range boundaries (A, J, S) are applied across the whole column, the effective ranges become A–I, J–R, and S–Z for every AcadPlan. This produces ambiguous lookup results. For example, the last name of "John" under AMS_BA falls into the J–R range rather than the intended A–R range.
