Your first workflow

We will now guide you through the creation of your first workflow. You will learn how to:

• Upload WorkData
• Configure a workflow
• Run a workflow
• Retrieve results

Uploading data

First, create a text file (.txt) on your computer with Notepad. Then click on “Workdata: Upload” on the sidebar. Here you can either drag-and-drop your .txt (e.g. from Explorer) onto the top (1), or click the top to browse to your file. After you have done so, you will see your file listed below, along with some metadata options for your file. Here you can set tags for individual files, or for all files being uploaded. Be sure to set the mediatype correctly! When you are ready, click “upload” (2).

Configuring a workflow

Next, go to “Workflows: Configurator” on the sidebar. This is our no-code GUI for configuring a workflow. Here you can select data sources, processing steps, and other attributes of your new workflow.

For now, drag out a “data explicit” below, third from the left, into the main window.

A data explicit allows you to select a specific workdata as an input to your workflow. Click the lower right to configure it. In this pane, you can select your .txt from earlier.

Next, drag out a “processing step”, the leftmost option below. (You may need to zoom out to see everything — simply scroll down!)

Processing steps take WorkData and other parameters and process them, producing outputs. These outputs can be viewed and downloaded as is, or used as inputs for further processing steps. For this example, select the processing step dataslot_string_in_out. This processing step simply takes a text file as input and outputs its contents as another text file.

You can now view information about this processing step, including a brief description. If you would like to learn more, click “processing step definition” in the menu in the top right. File input and output is listed near the bottom. For processing steps with parameters, the parameters can be expanded and configured just above the files.

Now, connect your data explicit to an input node of the processing step. Simply drag from one to the other!

Lastly, set a title for your workflow in the menu on the right. You can optionally also set a description, a timeout, and so on. When you’re done, don’t forget to “save” and “publish” your workflow!

Running a workflow

Navigate to “Workflows: Explorer” to see your newly published workflow, as well as any others that you have made or are available to you.

Now, click the “execute” button to run your workflow. You can then view your workflow’s execution as it runs.

If you’ve set everything up correctly, your job should finish almost immediately. Once completed, the workflow graph will show completed jobs, and input or output files can be viewed from there as well.

Viewing results

Navigate once more to “Workdata: Workdata”. You should see your new workflow’s output listed here, along with a workflow execution report and any other files you might have. Here you can download output files, as well as rename, edit, and delete files.

Remember: input files are part of the data lineage of output files. Any input file cannot be deleted without deleting all output files that depend on it for creation (through a job)!

Advanced workflow configuration

Workflows are highly configurable. For instance, using a “data query” and a “data selector”, you can select the most recent 10 files matching a specific tag, then give them as an input collection to a ProcessingStep. It is also possible to set workflow variables; these variables can then be set when running a workflow. These features allow for flexible, reusable workflows.