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The attributes which are released to a relying party can be influenced by adding ActivationConditions to DataConnectors and AttributeDefinitions. This can limit the attributes available at the start of the filtering process, and can thus act as a form of filtering. Typically these activation conditions are used to avoid expensive operations which serve no purpose in a given situation. For instance you might not connect to an LDAP directory for attributes if you knew that those attributes would never be used in assertions for a specific relying party (or if the subject was not visible in that directory).

Equally ActivationConditions can be attached to AttributeEncoders. These can be used to limit the encoding an attribute into SAML under certain circumstances. This is often useful to control the format used to render a particular attribute for a particular relying party. In V2, this could only be achieved by cumbersome duplication of attributes with specific filters.

In general activation conditions should not be viewed as an alternative form of filtering. Rather they should be viewed as a way of achieving something which in V2 could only be achieved in more cumbersome ways. In most cases, it's simpler to start to be with "resolving everything" and by encoding attributes consistently, and use this feature for special situations.