Redact a string containing sensitive content

The “Redact String” action replaces sensitive text with symbols in a string of text.

Many documents and datasets contain sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, driving license numbers, credit card numbers, and other personally identifying or proprietary information. There are a lot of enterprise solutions for capturing and obscuring such data but sometimes the necessary software is too expensive or cumbersome and things still manage to slip through the cracks.

The “Redact String” action in PowerTools makes it easy to find and replace sensitive information in any string of text. Just supply the source text and PowerTools will do the rest, returning a redacted result that is safe to disseminate. For advanced scenarios, the action also supports Regular Expressions to capture tricky bits of text or those that match a particular pattern (such as “^(?!0{3})(?!6{3})[0-8]\d{2}-(?!0{2})\d{2}-(?!0{4})\d{4}$” for US Social Security numbers or “^4[0-9]{12}(?:[0-9]{3})?$” for a credit card number).

Parameters

TitleNameTypeDescription

Source

source

string

String containing the values to redact

Value

value

string

Individual string to redact

Values

values

array

Collection of strings to redact

Regular Expression

regex

string

Regular expression for matching strings

Response

Status

TitleNameTypeDescription

Success

Result

result

string

Redacted text

Failure

Result

result

string

Error description

Integrate the "Redact String" function into a workflow or app with the platform of your choice:

How to redact a string containing sensitive content in Microsoft Power Automate

Instructions

  1. In the Flow designer, click the “+” icon to insert a new action.
  2. Select the “Text – Redact String” action under PowerTools in the “Choose an operation” dialog.
  3. Insert the necessary values or variables in each input field.
  4. Execute the flow.

Example

 

Video

How to redact a string containing sensitive content in Microsoft Power Apps

Instructions

  1. Add the PowerTools connector from the Data menu.
  2. In the formula for the control, variable or element, type “ApptigentPowerTools.RedactString().result”. Within the parentheses, enter the field, control or variable that contains the source collection.
  3. Preview or run the app.

Example

Coming Soon

Video

How to redact a string containing sensitive content in Salesforce

Instructions

  1. Drag and drop a new action onto the design surface. Edit the action and choose PowerTools from the category menu on the left.
  2. Click in the “Action” search box, scroll through the action list and choose “Text – Redact String”.  Insert the necessary values or variables in each input field.  (Note: Click the “Advanced” link to manually assign output variables to the action results)
  3. Run or Debug your flow to preview the results.

Example

Video

How to redact a string containing sensitive content in Zapier

Instructions

  1. Within the Zap editor, add a new action and select PowerTools from the gallery.
  2. Select the desired action in the drop-down list.
  3. Select an existing account or connect a new account using your PowerTools license key then click ‘Continue’.
  4. In the ‘Set up action’ section, enter the appropriate values in the configuration fields, then click the ‘Continue’ button.
  5. Preview your results by clicking the ‘Test & continue’ button.
  6. Add actions as needed, then save and execute your Zap.

Example

Video

How to redact a string containing sensitive content in Nintex

Instructions

  1. Locate the “Apptigent PowerTools” group in the actions navigator then drag and drop the “Text – Redact String” action onto the design surface.
  2. Insert the necessary values or variables in each input field.
  3. Assign the result to a variable.
  4. Test the workflow.

Example

Video

How to redact a string containing sensitive content in another Platform or Custom Code

Instructions

If your platform is not listed and it supports Open API (Swagger) extensions, import the API Definition document from the Developer Edition product on our Customer Portal at https://portal.apptigent.com/product (look for the Open API link at the top of the PowerTools Developer API definition page). Invoke the desired actions in your app or workflow design tool, supplying values for the listed parameters. Refer to the developer documentation on the Customer Portal for details on input and output formats.

If you are developing a custom app, execute a RESTful POST operation to the /CountCollection endpoint in your application code or use the pre-generated client scaffolding from our Github repo at https://github.com/apptigent/powertools. Be sure to include your API Key (Client ID) in the header using the “X-IBM-Client-Id” key/value pair. The body should be a well-formed JSON object with the parameter label(s) and value(s) in the specified format. Refer to the API documentation at https://portal.apptigent.com for more information.

Example

const request = require('request');

const options = {
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://connect.apptigent.com/api/utilities/RedactString',
  headers: {
    'X-IBM-Client-Id': 'REPLACE_THIS_KEY',
    'content-type': 'application/json',
    accept: 'application/json'
  },
  body: {
    value: 'brown',
    source: 'The brown cow',
    values: ['The', 'brown', 'cow'],
    regex: '[A-Za-z]{5}'
  },
  json: true
};

request(options, function (error, response, body) {
  if (error) throw new Error(error);

  console.log(body);
});
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