What is a flow?

Flow diagrams

A Flow diagram is a graphical representation of a workflow or workflow execution. Tasks are shown as boxes, and dependencies as lines between the boxes.

To open a Flow page, double-click on a workflow or workflow execution to open an information page. Choose Flow from the drop-down list, beside the workflow name.

When available, icons are shown on the task boxes to indicate the category of action the task performs:

• File Action : The task performs a file operation, such as delete or create.

• Folder Action : The task performs a folder operation, such as delete or create.

• Template Action : The task implements a Jinja2 template.

• Message Action : The task makes REST API calls or sends a message, including email or Kafka.

• Generic System Action

• CLI Action : The task uses CLI.

• User Action : The task requires user input.

• Javascfript Action : The task includes JavaScript.

• Python Action : The task includes Python.

• Checksum Action : The task returns the checksum value of a filename or path.

• Delay Action : The task incorporates a delay, for example, “perform this action, then wait two s”.

• Subworkflow : The task calls another workflow.

Click Screenshot Flow to download the Flow diagram as a .png file.

The Flow diagram of a workflow

The Flow diagram of a workflow shows all of the tasks that could be run by the workflow and their dependencies. For example: on success of Task 1, perform Task 2; on failure of Task 1, perform Task 3. For this example, the dependency is indicated by a solid line, colored green for success or red for failure. If the dependency is conditional, the diagram shows a dotted green line. Hover your mouse over the word Condition to see the condition.

Tasks are all in Preview status because the diagram is showing a workflow, not a completed execution.

Choose a task to see the path to the task; for example, the success of two previous tasks. With a task selected, click Details on the right of the page to open the Details panel and view information about the task, including the action performed, the task definition, and the information published by the action, if any.

The Flow diagram of a workflow execution

The Flow diagram of a workflow execution shows the tasks that ran for the chosen execution, including their status.

For detailed information about a task, choose the task and click Details on the right of the page to see the information panels.

The information panels show the following:

• Details : name of the task, the action performed, information published, and time stamps

• Action Executions: the list of action executions performed when the task ran, with their action IDs, status, input and output

  From the Action Executions panel, click Debug to test or debug an action.

• Run Time: the list of tasks performed in the workflow execution, the run time of each, and their timespan