A control is a node that routes, filters, combines, delays, or reshapes the items in a run, or runs another Automation on them. Every node after the trigger is either a control or an action. Actions copy, convert, encrypt, and deliver files. Controls route each item to a path, pass on only the items that match a condition, match the items of two paths, delay the next node, and change the shape of data.

A control processes every item it receives, and If, Switch, Filter, and Wait pass their items on unchanged. Transform is the only control that writes a file, and Aggregate is the only control that accepts only data.

Control	Accepts	Passes on
If	File or data	The same items, each on the True path or the False path
Switch	File or data	The same items, each on the path of the first rule it matches, or on the Default path
Filter	File or data	The items that match the condition, unchanged
Join	File or data	Data items that pair the Left and Right items with matching keys
Aggregate	Data	One data item containing every item it received
Wait	File or data	The same items, after the delay
Transform	File or data	The data the script returns, or one file for each item when a destination is set
Run Automation	What the selected Automation accepts	The items the selected Automation returns

The condition of an If or Filter node, each rule of a Switch node, and the keys of a Join node are TransformScript expressions evaluated against each item, and a Transform node runs a complete TransformScript. An expression reads a data item's fields and a file's parsed contents as payload, and it reads the information Files.com records about a file as attributes. Files.com reads a file's contents only when an expression uses payload, so a control that routes files by name or by custom metadata does not read them.

Every control has the same Error Handling rules and Return From Automation checkbox as every action.