Flow attributes

You can specify the following flow attributes:

  • A description of the flow
  • Email notification about the flow
  • Preventing concurrent versions of the same flow
  • Automatic exception handling of the flow

Flow description

You can use the description field of a flow to include any instructions regarding the flow, or to include general descriptions about what this flow does. This is especially useful if your site uses shared flows, that might be reused by another user.

Flow working directory

You can specify the working directory for the flow. All valid inner work items (subflows, jobs, and job arrays) in the flow will use this directory as the working directory unless you further specify a working directory for the inner work item. In this case, the working directory setting for the inner work item will override the setting for this flow. The working directory is also the work item's submission directory(the directory from which the work item is submitted).

You can also specify the flow working directory by triggering a flow and setting the variable JS_FLOW_WORKING_DIR.

If you do not specify the flow working directory in the flow definition and you specify JS_FLOW_WORKING_DIR when you trigger the flow, the value you specify with the variable becomes the flow's default working directory. If the working directory is specified in the flow definition, the JS_FLOW_WORKING_DIR variable has no effect.

The override order is:

  1. The working directory that is defined at the job level in the flow definition.
  2. The working directory that is defined at the flow level in flow definition.
  3. The working directory that is passed in with the JS_FLOW_WORKING_DIR variable when the flow is triggered.
  4. The working directory that is defined with the JS_DEFAULT_FLOW_WORKING_DIR parameter in the js.conf file.

You can use user variables when specifying the working directory.

Output and error files

By default, output and error files are not generated for flows or individual work items.

To troubleshoot flows, however, it is useful to always generate output and error files for work items in the flow.

You can set output and error file generation in the Flow Attributes. The behavior to create output and error files is the same as using the LSF® bsub command options -o and -e.

Email notification for a flow

By default, Process Manager notifies you by email only if your flow exits. You can set the notification options to send an email to you or another user when:

  • The flow exits

  • The flow ends, regardless of its success

  • The flow starts

  • The flow starts and exits

  • The flow starts and ends, regardless of its success

    If the flow exits, the email provides information about the jobs that caused the flow to exit. If you are using the default flow completion criteria, this is information about the job or job array that exited. If you specified flow completion criteria, this includes on the jobs specified in the flow completion criteria that exited.

    You can also turn off flow email notification entirely.

    At the system level, your Process Manager administrator can turn off flow email notification, or limit the size of the emails you receive. If you are not receiving email notifications you requested, or if your email notifications are truncated, check with your administrator.

Prevent concurrent flows

When you create a flow definition, you can prevent multiple copies of the flow from running at the same time. This is useful when you need to run a flow repeatedly, but any occurrence of the flow must have exclusive access to a database, for example.