Current behavior
Attributes (people, company, conversation, ticket, temporary) can only be used as-is. In workflows, a branch condition evaluates a single attribute against a value — there is no way to compute anything from two attributes (a difference, sum, or ratio) and branch on the result. The "Set attribute" step can only write a value, not a computed expression. In custom reports, charts aggregate existing attributes, but there are no calculated metrics or formula columns that combine two attributes.
The problem
A lot of very simple logic needs basic math on two attributes:
- Branch when the difference of two numeric attributes crosses a threshold — e.g. credit limit − amount spent, seats purchased − seats active, amount paid − amount refunded.
- The same for dates — e.g. the number of days between two date attributes.
- Report on a derived metric — e.g. the delta between two attributes and how it trends over time.
Because no arithmetic is available, the only way to get this inside a workflow today is a Data connector step: send the two attributes to an external endpoint, do the subtraction there, write the result back into a third attribute, and only then branch on it. That means external infrastructure to build and maintain, an extra round-trip and failure point, and attribute clutter — all for one subtraction. In reporting, the same limitation means exporting data to spreadsheets or BI tools just to chart a simple derived value.
Proposed idea
Support simple arithmetic expressions (+, −, ×, ÷; ideally date differences too) wherever attributes are used:
- In workflow branch conditions — e.g. "If (Attribute A − Attribute B) is greater than X".
- In the "Set attribute" step — write a computed value into an attribute (temporary attributes would be a natural fit for intermediate results).
- In custom reports — a calculated metric / formula column combining existing attributes.
Even a minimal version — attribute-minus-attribute in branch conditions plus one calculated-metric type in custom reports — would already remove the external Data connector round-trip for the most common case and immediately make reports richer.
Who would benefit
Any workspace whose people, company, conversation, or ticket data contains related numeric or date attributes — limits and usage, purchases and refunds, plan size and consumption, pairs of timestamps. Today these teams either maintain external compute endpoints for trivial math or export data to BI tools; native attribute arithmetic would make both unnecessary.