Data Action returning undefined in success output — JSON path mapping issue

Architect & Flows
1

What’s the best way to map a nested JSON response from an external REST API to a CXone Data Action output parameter when the payload structure uses dynamic keys?

I am building a custom integration using the CXone Architect Data Action (HTTP Request) to fetch agent availability status. The external service returns a 200 OK with the following JSON payload:

{
 "status": "success",
 "data": {
 "agent_id_123": {
 "available": true,
 "skill": "support"
 }
 }
}

My goal is to extract the available boolean. I have configured the Data Action output mapping as follows:

  • Output Name: agent_available
  • JSON Path: $.data.agent_id_123.available

However, the output consistently returns undefined in the downstream blocks. I have verified the HTTP request itself using Postman and the CXone API debug logs confirm the response body is received correctly. The issue seems isolated to the JSON path evaluation engine within the Data Action.

I suspect the problem lies in how the JSON path parser handles the dynamic agent_id_123 key. Since the agent ID is passed as an input variable {{agentId}}, I attempted to use a dynamic path like $.data.{{agentId}}.available, but this also failed. The documentation suggests static paths only, which limits flexibility.

Is there a supported syntax for dynamic key access in CXone JSON path mappings? If not, what is the recommended workaround? Should I be using a separate JavaScript snippet block to parse the JSON body manually after the HTTP request? I want to avoid adding unnecessary latency with additional blocks if the Data Action can handle this natively.

Note: I am using the application/json content type and have ensured the response header is correctly set. The failure is strictly in the mapping layer.

2

I normally fix this by leveraging the JsonPath library within the Data Action’s output mapping, as standard dot notation fails on dynamic keys like agent_id_123. The issue is that data.agent_id_123 is static, but your key changes per request. Here is how I handle this in my PagerDuty integration workflows:

  • Use Wildcard or Index-based Extraction: If the external API allows filtering by agent ID in the query string, ensure the response structure is predictable. If not, use $.data[*].available if the structure is an array, or iterate if it is an object map.
  • Correct JSONPath Syntax: In the CXone Data Action output field, do not use data.agent_id_123.available. Instead, use $.data['agent_id_123'].available if the ID is known at design time, or better yet, restructure the external call to return a flat array.
  • Test with Sample Payload: Use the “Test” button in Architect with the exact JSON. The JSONPath evaluator is strict. For dynamic keys, I often add a transformation step in a subsequent Data Action to flatten the map into a list before querying.
  • Verify Scope: Ensure the HTTP Request action has the correct headers. Missing Content-Type: application/json can cause the parser to treat the body as a string, breaking JSONPath resolution.

This approach avoids the undefined error by ensuring the path resolver matches the actual runtime structure.

3

Make sure you parse the dynamic key inside a Studio snippet before passing it to the Data Action, as static JsonPath mappings will always return null for variable keys. I tried hardcoding the path and got undefined, but using GetRESTProxy().body to extract the key dynamically actually works.

var body = JSON.parse(GetRESTProxy().body);
var agentKey = Object.keys(body.data)[0];
var status = body.data[agentKey].available;