In this article, you will learn about Flows and their related features, how they work, and what structures can be used in a Flow. If you don't have prior knowledge of Triggers, Actions, Queries, and Deployments, kindly read the corresponding articles first. Let's find out what a Flow is.
A Flow is the initial point of your whole integration creation process. It is a workflow that describes how your app connects to other apps. You can use Flows and set up an integration. For example, for a task manager app, a Flow could be "Send a Slack message when a task is created"; you can set up multiple integrations against this Flow for different Slack channels or for different task types.
When you visit the Flows tab in your dashboard, you can view all existing Flows in your app. The Flows page looks like as shown below.
A Flow can consist of two or more steps out of the following three Activities in a particular sequence.
- Trigger: A Trigger is an event that starts from your app and can then send data to other apps. Each Flow must have exactly one Trigger and it must be the first step. For example: if your app is a task management app then a Trigger can be Task Created. We can then add another step like Push Message to Slack Channel or Create Google Calendar Event; both these steps will be triggered after the Task Created Trigger.
- Action: An Action is a step we can execute on your app. For example: in a task manager, an Action can be to Create Task or Update Task. An Action cannot be the first step of an integration, and it is started by Integry on your platform. For example, an integration could be to Create Tasks (an Action on your app) from Slack Messages (Trigger).
- Query: Query is an Activity that is used to import data from one app into the other app. This step, when executed at the integration creation, is known as the initial data import.
A Flow will always have one Trigger and it can have one or more Actions and/or Queries. Other than Actions and Triggers, you can introduce IF conditions in your Flows. With conditions, you can create multiple integrations. To learn more about conditions and how to add them to your Flow, click here.
A step can be any event added to the Flow that is used to perform a certain Activity. There is no limit on the number of steps you can add to your Flow.
There are two types of Flows:
- Guided Flow: A type of Flow that you or Integry create for the end-users. The end-user can use it to set up an integration with the help of a Flow Card in the Integration Marketplace.
- Custom Flow: A type of Flow in which the end-user can directly create integrations with apps available in the Integration Marketplace.
Happy integrating!