# Looping Through Items in a List

A frequently designed pattern in your business processes is one that specifies the performance of a set of activities once for every iteration of the flow over a sequence of XML elements, retrieved from an XML document.

For Each nodes represent points in a business process at which a set of activities is performed repeatedly, once for each item in a list. For Each nodes includes an iterator node (on which a list of items is specified) and a loop (in which the activities to be performed for each item in the list are defined). An XML document (or a section of an XML document) is passed into the For Each loop in a business process variable. An iteration variable holds the current element being processed in the For Each loop, for the life of the loop.

This section describes how to add this looping logic to your business process. It includes the following topics:

- Creating For Each Nodes in Your Business Process
- Designing For Each Nodes