I’ve seen several posts on this but still have issues. Set Attribute still doesn’t appear to work for me. I’ve set the attribute name in the Attributes { } drop-down and tried various other ways but still not joy.
Any clues please?
The Flow has an Error and the Interactions reports
Response Path
5a5855e96c4c4d009fc09f1b/c/CH50ccd8d1dd04461fa5b66ddec5b5cf2c
Attributes
{}
Error: At least one attribute is required.
Hi there,
To set an attribute you will need to set up the action as follows:
If you are then using the attribute further in the same flow you’ll need to add a Get Attribute action as follows:
When you then come to use the attribute you will need to reference the value of the Get Attribute action such as:
Alternatively if you are using an attribute that’s been set in a previous thread you can just reference it from the trigger such as:
If you have any further issues getting your attributes to work please don’t hesitate to email us at support@flowxo.com and share your flow with us so we can take a closer look. To share a flow please edit the flow, click on the private button at the top, make the flow public and share a copy of the sharing URL with us.
Thanks. 
Thanks - got all that but the Set An Attribute doesn’t appear to set the value immediately in the flow.
So if I ask a question then try and set the attribute {{search_area}} to the answer i.e. {{ask_a_question.parsed_answer}} then the attribute appears not to be set until then end of the flow. The next time round attribute {{search_area}} has the value from the previous Set Attribute.
So is {{ask_a_question.parsed_answer}} the correct value to get the response from an Ask a Question?
And should I be able to use this to Set an Attribute.
Logically this should be very simple/basic stuff so not sure why I’m missing something very simple.
The reason I need to do this is the I need to ask a number of questions in the flow, save each response in local attributes and then finally use all the saved attributes to perform an HTTP request with &arguments.
Thanks Andrew
This is the link to the Flow “Search”
https://flowxo.com/app/flows/5a5860f7ea062f0068c5abf4
Can you see the interactions log?
https://flowxo.com/app/interactions?request=5a5e809e2d599a0080229785
In the log, the Set Attribute is showing the correct value however the following Send Message does not output the correct attribute for {{search_area}.
There is a bug here somewhere or I’m going mad 
SORTED!
I have created a new flow (called HTTP) which uses all the attributes values collected from the first flow (SEARCH). This appears to work as the second flow has the correct values which can then be used in the HTTP request.
It is a bit of a work around and to be honest I would expect the attribute values to be available immediately in the same flow. Has no one else picked this up as a problem?
Hi Andrew,
Unfortunately the link to the flow isn’t a share link so I can’t take a look at your flow.
The attributes will update immediately when the Set Attribute action is called. What I’d suspect you are missing here is the “Get Attribute” action. There’s a flow here that you can install that shows the steps that you need to use an attribute set in the same flow later in that flow.
I hope this helps. 
I’ve been having a lot of the same issues and confusions as Andrew with the attributes. The screenshots Karen provided are the first ones I’ve seen correctly breaking it down into steps and explaining how to use attributes correctly.
I got so frustrated with attributes feature and lack of documentation that I just stopped using it and tried using workarounds. I ended up assuming there is a major bug in the system!
One of the biggest mistakes I did was to use the ‘fish icon’ when setting the Get Attribute action. I didn’t understand that you can just simply type in the name of the attribute you wish to retrieve. If you use the ‘fish icon’, the Attribute to be retrieved is set incorrectly, such as {{email_address_question.parsed_answer}}.
I’ve been building my first bot (test version) for weeks and the main struggle is to understand how you correctly refer to something inside the system (questions answers, attributes etc) not to mention other hidden logic. The way you refer to internal data varies but the UI nor the documentation helps with this. This has led a lot of time wasted doing trial and error kind of a testing. I now feel I should have done my own documentation because I’ve also repeated some of my mistakes just because I didn’t write down the inner logic and rules of the system.
I really like the idea of Flowxo. But to be honest, if I would have found another platform with similar kind of features, I would have switched ages ago just because it’s been so difficult to understand some parts of it.
Hey guys,
We do realise that Attributes are a bit tricky to deal with at the moment. There is however, work underway that should be released imminently that will hopefully make this much easier. Keep an eye out for these over the next couple of weeks. 
Have you also seen the tutorial we have on using attributes here?
I totally agree that it would really help if we supplied a list of attribute names that were possible to use on the Flow XO icon (fish icon 
) and this is something I have fed back to the development team. There are other areas such as data outputs and metadata that this would be a great feature to have as well for making the UI easier. These values are available if you open your interaction logs, and view the details or a previously run flow, but I do appreciate that it is time consuming and awkward to keep flipping between windows.
We are constantly looking at ways to improve the UI and make the whole experience better for our users so all feedback (positive and negative) is really appreciated and always taken onboard with future development work. If you’re ever struggling with anything at all though please don’t hesitate to reach out to us either here or at support@flowxo.com and we are always happy to help and guide you with how to get something set up.
Tommi.
I thought I was being stupid on this subject. Your post confirms to me that there is indeed problems with the software and the way it handles attributes.
Like you I have realised that flow xo has got some unique features. I’m not a software designer or programmer yet can implement some complex interactions.
Flow xo, please can you look at the attributes features? It would be great if the fish icon opened a list of attributes available.
Regards Andrew
Thanks Karen
Overall this is a fantastic platform but your enhancements would be appreciated.
I am working with complex JSON outputs which in Flow XO works very well so far.
Regards Andrew
@Smartview_Property if you use answers in the same flow you don’t need to set attributes.
In your HTTP request params value use {{your-question.parsed_answer}}
It is more short and easy than:
Yes! Finally! I’ve been dealing with the same issue for hours!!
The Medium post about attributes that Karen shared is not helpful at all in this case. I was trying to set and get attributes in the same flow, followed everything in this tutorial, tried a bunch of other workarounds, and kept coming up with an empty value every time, no matter how I called it. I really love this platform, but this should be way easier – and there should also be much clearer documentation. It would be great if that tutorial could be rewritten and updated using the flow that Karen shared in her first response. Can that happen?
Anyway, thanks everyone for helping me work this out.
Hi @kittenlogic
Glad you got there in the end.
Keep an eye out over the next couple of weeks and there are some changes coming to the way attributes work to try and make them simpler. Once these are out I’ll definitely look into how to improve the documentation and tutorials around this area.
Hi @Omoshx78
I believe that @CaosMkt was referring to Using Outputs in Select Fields. If you ask a question in a flow you don’t necessarily need to save it to an attribute and instead can just use the output directly from the question.
