Intermediate9 min

Branching, Filters, and Routers

Real workflows are not a single straight line. A refund request and a sales lead should go down different paths. Filters stop a flow when a condition is not met; routers split the flow into multiple paths based on the data. Mastering these turns toy automations into ones you can trust with real work.

Filter: gate the flow

A filter is a checkpoint. If the condition passes, the flow continues; if not, it stops silently. Use it to ignore noise, like skipping internal emails or test submissions, before you spend an AI call on them.

Router: split into paths

A router (called a Switch in n8n, a Router in Make, Paths in Zapier) sends each item down one of several branches based on a value. The classic pattern: classify with AI first, then route on the category.

Make - router by category
[ AI: classify ] --> [ Router ]
|-- Billing --> notify finance
|-- Bug --> create Jira issue
|-- Sales --> add to CRM
|-- Other --> log only
Classify once, then branch on the result.
Classify once, route many
Do not call the model separately in each branch to ask is this billing, is this a bug. Classify a single time at the top, store the label, and route on it. Fewer calls, lower cost, consistent decisions.

Always include a fallback branch (Other or Else). Inputs will arrive that match none of your categories, and a flow with nowhere to send them will error or drop data.

Hands-on tasks