Creating flows in App Connect Designer

App Connect Designer provides an authoring environment in which you can create and test flows. You can also share your flows by using the built-in export and import functions.

About this task

In App Connect, a flow defines the order and behavior of a sequence of activities that enable applications to interact. App Connect supports two types of flow: event-driven flows and flows for an API.
Event-driven flow
In an event-driven flow, you identify an event that automatically triggers defined actions in one or more applications. An event is a change or activity that occurs in a source application, such as when a document is created in Salesforce. An action is an operation that App Connect initiates in a target application when a flow runs. For example, App Connect creates a file in Box with the name of the new Salesforce document. You can also add tools that process the data that you receive, such as parsers and conditional (if) nodes. In the following example, the flow checks if a Box file exists with the name of the new Salesforce document. If it doesn't exist, the flow creates a file in Box with that name. If a Box file of that name already exists, the flow displays an appropriate message.
An event-driven flow that begins with a Salesforce New document event and continues with an action that retrieves file metadata from Box. An If node defines a condition. If a Box file doesn't exist with the name of the new Salesforce document, the flow creates a Box file with that name. If the Box file already exists, the flow displays a message to say that the file exists.
Flows for APIs
Flows for an API (also referred to as an API flow) provide a way to implement an API. An API flow contains a request, actions for one or more target applications, and a response. The request uses a model that you define to request the creation, replacement, or retrieval of data objects or records in your applications. When the request is submitted, each target application completes its action. The flow then returns a response, which either confirms that the actions were successful, or returns the data that was requested. The following example shows an API flow with a model that defines how to create an order for flowers. The API contains a flow that creates a Trello card when flowers are ordered, and updates Salesforce with the quantity of flowers that are needed.
The API starts with a Request node, followed by a node that adds a card in Trello. The next node retrieves an order product from Salesforce, then another node updates or creates an order product. The flow ends with a Response node.
You can create up to 100 event-driven of API flows in App Connect Designer. You can find out more about event-driven and API flows, including examples and different types of event, in Types of flows.
Warning: The size of the YAML file that represents an event-driven or API flow in App Connect Designer is limited to 800 KB. You might not be able to import a flow to App Connect where the YAML file is larger than 800 KB. And you might not be able to save a flow in App Connect Designer when the YAML file becomes larger than 800 KB.
You can create a flow in the following ways.
Tip: You can also ask the integration agent to create a flow for you. To open the agent, click the integration agent icon Icon that represents the integration agent, then describe your scenario. The agent asks for any information that it needs, then prompts you to connect to your applications and map your data. The agent can also add If, For each, and Log nodes from the Toolbox, but filters for the If node aren't populated automatically.
The following topics describe how to configure your flows and connect to your applications.