Exporting a flow to a BAR file

You can export an event-driven or API flow to a BAR file from an App Connect Designer instance in your cluster.

Before you begin

From your App Connect Designer authoring environment, create a flow that meets the export requirements outlined in the Export guidelines section. For information about creating flows from an App Connect Designer instance in your cluster, see Creating flows from scratch.

Export guidelines

These guidelines identify the requirements for successfully exporting a BAR file that can be deployed to an integration server.

Connection considerations for running the deployed flow

When you deploy a BAR file to an integration in your cluster, you’ll need to indicate which locally deployed connectors in your cluster (that is, local connectors) and consequently, endpoints, the flow can use to run its event, actions, or operations. These connectors are listed under the Supported components for export section.

Minimum conditions for export

At a minimum, test the event-driven flow to verify the behavior of the event and actions, or test the API flow to verify that the defined API operations can be successfully invoked.

Supported components for export

The following components are allowed in the flow:

  • In an API flow, up to 10 models are allowed, and any of the supported operation types can be configured.
  • Operations (exposed as actions) for any API under Catalog > APIs can be included in the flow.
  • The following event sources are supported for event-driven flows.
    • Amazon Redshift
    • Apptio Targetprocess
    • Asana
    • Callable flow
    • ClickSend
    • CMIS
    • Coupa
    • Email
    • Eventbrite
    • GitHub
    • GitLab
    • Gmail
    • Google Calendar
    • Google Cloud Pub/Sub
    • Google Sheets
    • Greenhouse
    • HubSpot Marketing
    • IBM® Db2®
    • IBM Engineering Workflow Management
    • IBM Maximo®
    • IBM MQ
    • IBM OpenPages® with Watson™
    • IBM Sterling Order Management System
      Restriction: This connector is supported on Linux® 64-bit (amd64 architecture), but is not supported on Linux on Z (s390x architecture) or Linux on Power® (ppc64le architecture).
    • Insightly
    • Jira
    • Kafka
    • LDAP
    • Magento
    • MailChimp
    • Marketo
    • Microsoft Active Directory
    • Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales
    • Microsoft Entra ID
    • Microsoft Excel Online
    • Microsoft Exchange
    • Microsoft SharePoint
    • Microsoft SQL Server
    • Microsoft Teams
    • Microsoft Viva Engage
    • monday.com
    • MySQL
    • Oracle Database
    • Oracle Human Capital Management
    • PostgreSQL
    • Salesforce
    • Salesforce Commerce Cloud Digital Data
    • Scheduler (Toolbox utility; does not require an account)
    • ServiceNow
    • Slack
    • SurveyMonkey
    • Toggl Track
    • Wufoo
    • Zendesk Service
    • Zoho CRM
    PushTopic considerations for Salesforce:

    When you create an event-driven flow that uses a Salesforce event node and then start the flow in App Connect Designer, a PushTopic is automatically created in your Salesforce instance to aid with event notifications. When you stop the flow, this PushTopic is automatically deleted.

    In the App Connect Dashboard, when you create an integration server or integration runtime by using an exported event-driven flow with a Salesforce event node, a PushTopic is also automatically created in your Salesforce instance to aid with event notifications. However, this PushTopic isn't automatically deleted and remains in your instance even after the integration server or integration runtime is deleted. Therefore, you need to manually delete these PushTopics from your Salesforce instance and you might need to work with your administrator to do so.

  • If any of these nodes are included as an action in your flow, you can choose to use local connectors to establish connections and run the nodes:
    • Amazon CloudWatch
    • Amazon DynamoDB
    • Amazon EC2
    • Amazon EventBridge
    • Amazon Kinesis
    • Amazon RDS
    • Amazon Redshift
    • Amazon S3
    • Amazon SES
    • Amazon SNS
    • Amazon SQS
    • Anaplan
    • Apptio Targetprocess
    • Asana
    • AWS Lambda
    • BambooHR
    • Box
    • Calendly
    • Callable flow
    • ClickSend
    • CMIS
    • Community connector (imported)
    • Confluence
    • Couchbase
      Restriction: This connector is supported on Linux 64-bit (amd64 architecture), but is not supported on Linux on Z (s390x architecture) or Linux on Power (ppc64le architecture).
    • Coupa
    • Crystal Ball
    • DocuSign
    • Domino®
    • Dropbox
    • Email
    • Eventbrite
    • Expensify
    • Factorial HR
    • flexEngage Deprecated
    • GitHub
    • GitLab
    • Gmail
    • Google Analytics
    • Google Calendar
    • Google Chat
    • Google Cloud BigQuery
    • Google Cloud Pub/Sub
    • Google Cloud Storage
    • Google Contacts
    • Google Drive
    • Google Groups
    • Google Sheets
    • Google Tasks
    • Google Translate
    • GraphQL APIs (imported APIs)
    • Greenhouse
    • HTTP
    • HubSpot CRM
    • HubSpot Marketing
    • Hunter
    • IBM API Connect (discovered APIs)
    • IBM Cloud Object Storage S3
    • IBM Cloudant®
    • IBM Db2
    • IBM Engineering Workflow Management
    • IBM FileNet® Content Manager
    • IBM Food Trust
    • IBM Maximo
    • IBM MQ
    • IBM MQ (via REST) Deprecated
    • IBM OpenPages with Watson
    • IBM Sterling Inventory Visibility
    • IBM Sterling Order Management System
      Restriction: This connector is supported on Linux 64-bit (amd64 architecture), but is not supported on Linux on Z (s390x architecture) or Linux on Power (ppc64le architecture).
    • IBM Supply Chain Intelligence Suite
    • IBM Watson Discovery
    • IBM Weather Company Data Limited Edition
    • Infobip
    • Insightly
    • JDBC
    • Jenkins
    • Jira
    • Kafka
    • LDAP
    • Magento
    • MailChimp
    • Marketo
    • Microsoft Active Directory
    • Microsoft Azure Blob storage
    • Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
    • Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales
    • Microsoft Entra ID
    • Microsoft Excel Online
    • Microsoft Exchange
    • Microsoft OneDrive for Business
    • Microsoft OneNote
    • Microsoft Power BI
    • Microsoft SharePoint
    • Microsoft SQL Server
    • Microsoft Teams
    • Microsoft To Do
    • Microsoft Viva Engage
    • monday.com
    • MySQL
    • OpenAPI (imported API)
    • Oracle Database
    • Oracle E-Business Suite
    • Oracle Human Capital Management
    • PostgreSQL
    • Redis
    • Salesforce
    • Salesforce Account Engagement
    • Salesforce Commerce Cloud Digital Data
    • Salesforce Marketing Cloud
    • SAP
    • SAP (via OData)
    • SAP Ariba
    • SAP Commerce Cloud
    • SAP SuccessFactors
    • ServiceNow
    • Shopify
    • Siemens Teamcenter SLM
    • Slack
    • Snowflake
    • SOAP web services (imported web services)
    • Square
    • SurveyMonkey
    • Toggl Track
    • Trello
    • Twilio
    • UKG
    • WordPress
    • Workday
    • Wufoo
    • Yapily
    • Zendesk Service
    • Zoho CRM
  • Any of these toolbox utilities can be included in the flow:
    • Scheduler
    • If
    • For each
    • Log
    • Set variable
    • JSON parser
    • CSV parser
    • XML parser

Unsupported components for export

The following toolbox utilities are not supported in a flow that you want to export as a BAR file:

  • Batch process

Exporting a flow

When you export a flow, you can choose to export its configuration as a YAML or BAR file, or as an OpenAPI document. To deploy the flow to an integration server, you must export it as a BAR file. All the configuration settings, other than the connection credentials for your accounts, are preserved in the exported archive.

Procedure

To export a flow, complete the following steps:

  1. From your App Connect Designer authoring environment, open the App Connect Designer dashboard (if not currently on display) by clicking the Dashboard icon Dashboard icon.
  2. From the dashboard, locate the flow, open its menu, and then click Export. (The options that you see depend on your authoring environment and the type of flow.) The flow can be in a Stopped or Running state.
    Selecting the Export option from a flow's menu
  3. Click Runtime flow asset (BAR) and then click Export.
    Export panel for a BAR file
    Tip: You can also use the OpenAPI V3 YAML and Runtime flow BAR assets (ZIP) option to export the flow as a BAR file. With this option, you will obtain a ZIP archive that contains the BAR file as well as an OpenAPI document (YAML format) that conforms to the OpenAPI Specification Version 3.0.
    Note: The OpenAPI V3 YAML and Runtime flow BAR assets (ZIP) , OpenAPI V3.0 (YAML), OpenAPI V3.0 (JSON), OpenAPI V2.0/Swagger document (YAML), and OpenAPI V2.0/Swagger document (JSON) options are displayed only for API flows. These options can typically be used to export API flows as OpenAPI documents. For more information, see Exporting your API flow as an OpenAPI document.
  4. If prompted, choose to save the file, which is named after your flow by default, as flow_name.bar. (Spaces in the flow name are replaced with underscores.) Depending on your browser, the file might also be automatically downloaded to a configured download location.

What to do next

Access your App Connect Dashboard instance.