You sent the list of PDI new features to two Excel files: one file with the blocker, severe, and critical issues, and the other file with the rest of the issues.

In the Filter rows step, you put a condition to evaluate if the priority of a task was blocker, severe, or critical. For every row coming to the filter, the condition was evaluated.

The rows that met the condition, that is, those that had one of those three priorities, followed the green hop. This hop linked the Filter rows step with the Microsoft Excel Output step that creates the b_bouchard.xls file. If you take a look at the Filter rows configuration window, you can also see the name of that step in the Send 'true' data to step textbox.

The rows that did not meet the condition, that is, those with another priority, were sent toward the other Microsoft Excel Output step, following the red hop. This hop linked the Filter rows step with the Microsoft Excel Output step that creates the new_features_to_develop.xls file. In this case, you can also see the name of the Microsoft Excel Output step in the Send 'false' data to step textbox.

When you have to make a decision, and upon that decision split the stream into two, you can use the Filter rows step as you did in this last exercise. In this case, the Filter rows step acts as a decision maker: it has a condition and two possible destinations. For every row coming to the filter, the step evaluates the condition. Then, if the result of the condition is true, it decides to send the row towards the step selected in the first drop-down list of the configuration window: Send 'true' data to step.

If the result of the condition is false, it sends the row towards the step selected in the second drop-down list of the configuration window: Send 'false' data to step.

Alternatively, you can use the Java Filter step. As said in the last chapter, the purpose of both steps—Filter rows and Java Filter—is the same; the main difference is the way in which you type or enter the conditions.

Sometimes you have to make nested decisions, for example:

When the conditions are as simple as testing whether a field is equal to a value, you have a simpler way for creating a transformation like the one shown previously.