Editing a streams flow

You can easily change a streams flow design to get the information that you need to make business decisions in real time.

Editing the canvas makes it easy to customize the data flow. You can do any of the following actions:

You can open the canvas from the Projects page where your streams flow is located, and from the Metrics page of the streams flow.

We validate all changes to ensure that your streams flow runs, and then we update the streams flow.

Prerequisites

The source data can be in any format, including binary data. If the source format is in JSON format, it can be parsed automatically, see Parsing values from JSON. Or, you can parse it using a Code operator.

You must have the Editor role to edit your own streams flow or the Admin role to edit all streams flows.

You must know the project where the streams flow is located.

A Streams instance must be provisioned.

Procedure

To edit a streams flow, perform the following steps:

  1. From the Projects menu, perform the following steps:

    a) Click View All Projects, and then click the name of the project where your streams flow is located.

    b) In the Project page, click the Assets tab.

    c) Scroll down to the Streams Flow section. If you have more than 10 streams flows, click View all to see all streams flows in Tiles view or in Table view. You can search the list by the name, status, and creator. You can create a new streams flow.

    d) Click the three dots in the ACTIONS column of the streams flow that you want to change, and then click Edit.

    Actions column

    Alternatively, from the Metrics page, click the Edit icon.

    Edit

  2. You can perform any of the following actions in the canvas:

    a) Drag operators from the canvas palette onto the canvas.

    b) Link operators together by dragging the mouse cursor from the output port of one operator to the input port of another.

    Connecting operators

    c) Display and change properties about any operator by clicking that operator. Change the properties in the Properties pane.

    d) Change the name of the operator by double-clicking the operator name, and then typing in the new name. For example, you might change the Aggregate operator name to Aggregate by Event Type.

    e) Display schema fields of an operator by hovering the mouse pointer over the link. For example, you can see each field and its data type.

    Schema fields

    This feature can be a great help when you use some of the analytics operators or when you need to change the data schema.

    f) Change the schema fields of an operator by clicking the operator, and then click Edit Output Schema Edit Output Schema in the Properties pane.

    g) Change the name of the streams flow, the text in its Description field, or the Streams service instance that is associated with it by clicking Settings Settings. The Settings panel opens to the General tab. Make your changes, and then click Save.

    h) Install any Python packages to be in addition to the supported and preinstalled packages by clicking Settings Settings, and then clicking Runtime. Follow the steps to install Python packages.

    i) Change the Streams service instance by clicking Settings Settings, and then clicking Runtime. Select the instance that you want to use.

    As you edit your streams flow, we validate the changes. The Validation icon Validation icon is shown during this process. If errors exist in the streams flow, the Notification icon Notifications icon is displayed. When no errors exist, the Notification icon is disabled OK.

  3. If the Notification icon is displayed, perform the following steps:

    a) Click the Notification icon to display general error messages. For example, the error in a Sample Data operator might be “Sample Data - Required parameters are missing.”

    b) A red circle Red circle is shown in the operator that has the error. Hover your mouse pointer over the red dot to see specific errors.

    c) Click the operator that has errors to open its Properties pane. A red circle is shown next to the problematic properties. Correct the problem.

    The following screen capture shows the three areas where errors are displayed.

    All errors in an operator

  4. Click the Save icon SAVE to save the streams flow and any changes that you made in the Settings panel. Click Metrics Metrics page to go to the Metrics page.

    Note: Editing and saving a streams flow creates an updated version of the streams flow with the same name. If the streams flow is currently running and you edit and save the streams flow, a new draft is saved. You get a notification to redeploy with the updated streams flow.

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