Designing your flow

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Learn how to design a flow in IBM Spectrum LSF Process Manager Flow Editor for use in LSF. Use the provided flow definition examples to create a flow or design your own.

You can monitor and control flows from the Flow Editor. This allows you to edit flow definitions and run test flows from the same place. After you submit a test flow, you can see the status of each work item in the flow definition by clicking Refresh.

You can continue to edit the flow definition while the test flow is running. You can also synchronize these flow definition changes with the LSF Process Manager server directly from the Flow Editor by clicking Refresh. This synchronizes the flow definition and test flow instance, including the work item from where you will rerun a test flow, and work items that are put on hold.

Note: If you submit a test flow for a flow definition, then modify a work item in the flow definition and click Refresh, the running test flow uses the following version of the modified work item:
  • If the test flow is already running the work item when you click Refresh, the test flow continues to run the original unmodified version of the work item (that is, with the old commands and parameters).
  • If the test flow is not running the work item when you click Refresh, the test flow uses the new version of the work item during the next time that it runs the work item.
  • If you deleted the work item from the flow definition, the system kills the corresponding work item in the test flow if it is currently running. If you deleted subflows or flow arrays, the system recursively deletes all running work items in the subflows or flow arrays.

LSF Process Manager also determines if a work item is the original unmodified version or the new version by checking its name and (for job arrays and flow arrays) its index. If you changed a work item name or index, it is considered a new work item. For example, if you have a job J1, which is running, and you rename it to J2, then refresh or rerun the flow, J1 is considered to be deleted. LSF Process Manager kills the J1 job and resubmits the J2 job. Similarly, if you have a job array A1 with index 1-10, and you change the index to 1-5, LSF Process Manager kills A1 and resubmits the A1 job array.