This article explains how to use the Transform Text action in HappyFox Workflows to modify text values — including changing case, splitting strings, finding and replacing content, and extracting contact details — before passing the result to a subsequent action.

Available options

The Transform Text action offers nine transformation types. Select one from the Transformations dropdown when configuring the action.

• Uppercase — Converts all characters in the input to uppercase.
• Lowercase — Converts all characters in the input to lowercase.
• Capitalize — Capitalises the first letter of the input string.
• Split Text — Splits the input into separate parts at each instance of a separator character you specify. Each part is available as an individually addressable output value downstream.
• Find And Replace Text — Finds every occurrence of a specified string within the input and replaces it with a new string. The replacement applies to all matches, not just the first.
• Extract Email — Extracts one or more email addresses from the input. Each extracted address is available as a separately addressable output value.
• Extract Phone number — Extracts one or more phone numbers from the input. Each extracted number is available as a separately addressable output value.
• Trim — Removes leading and trailing whitespace from the input string.
• Plain Text — Strips HTML tags from the input and returns the plain text content.

How to add and configure the Transform Text action

1. Open the workflow you want to edit in HappyFox Workflows.
2. Click + Add Action at the point in the workflow where you want to add the transformation.
3. Select Transform Text from the action dropdown.
4. In the Transformations field, select the transformation type you want to apply.
5. In the Value To Transform field, enter the text to transform. To use a value from a previous action or the trigger, click + Insert Merge Fields and select the relevant field.

Note: The Value To Transform field is required. If the merge field you reference is empty at runtime, the action will receive an empty string and the output will also be empty. Use Run History to inspect the value passed in if the output is unexpectedly blank.

6. If you selected Split Text, an additional Separator field appears. Enter the character to split on — for example, a comma (,) to split a comma-separated list.
7. If you selected Find And Replace Text, two additional fields appear: Find Text and Replace Text. Enter the string to find and the string to replace it with. Both fields support merge fields.
8. Click Save & Test to save the action and run a test using the most recent trigger payload.

The Transform Text action configuration panel showing the Transformations dropdown expanded.

Reading the test results

After a successful test, the Test Results panel opens and shows the Data Out tab.

• For transformation types that produce a single output (Uppercase, Lowercase, Capitalize, Find And Replace Text, Trim, Plain Text), the result appears under a single Transformed Value label.
• For transformation types that can produce multiple outputs (Split Text, Extract Email, Extract Phone number), each extracted item appears as Transformed Value 0, Transformed Value 1, and so on. A final Transformed Value entry shows the full result as a JSON array.

The Test Results panel showing Data Out for a Split Text transformation with four parts.

When you reference the output of a Transform Text action in a subsequent action, use + Insert Merge Fields in that action to select the specific Transformed Value index you need — for example, Transformed Value 0 to use the first extracted email address.

Using the transformed value in subsequent actions

The output of a Transform Text action is available as a merge field in all actions that follow it in the same workflow. When configuring a later action:

1. Click + Insert Merge Fields in the relevant field.
2. Locate the Transform Text action in the merge field picker — it is listed by its step number and action name (for example, 6 | Transform Text).
3. Select the specific Transformed Value you need.

Note: If a transformation produces multiple outputs (Split Text, Extract Email, Extract Phone number), the merge field picker lists each indexed value separately. Select the index that matches the part you need. If you need to pass the entire result as a list, select the Transformed Value entry that contains the JSON array.

Notes on specific transformations

Find And Replace Text The replacement applies to every occurrence of the find string in the input, not just the first. If the find string appears three times, all three are replaced.

Extract Email and Extract Phone number These transformations scan the input for patterns matching email addresses or phone numbers and extract each match.

Plain Text This transformation removes HTML tags and returns the text content only.

Next steps

The Transform Text action is now configured and its output is available as a merge field in all subsequent workflow actions. Next, learn how to use merge fields and dynamic variables in HappyFox Workflows to reference transformed values across complex multi-step workflows.