Creating your first workflow
As discussed in the previous chapters of this eBook, trigger and actions make up a workflow. Now let us get into the details of how to create a workflow with webMethods.io Integration.
Let’s say you wish to create a workflow which sends the tweet content to an email address every time you post a new tweet on Twitter.
Here are the steps to do this.
Step 1: Select or add project
Once you log in, you will be redirected to the dashboard. Here, you will see a Default project. Click on the Default project to create a new workflow within it or create a new project by clicking on the + New Project button.
Step 2: Create a workflow
To create a new workflow, click on the + New Workflow button. This will redirect you to a new window which lists two options - Workflow and Recipes. Click on the Create New Workflow button.
You will see the webMethods.io Integration workflow canvas. To rename the workflow, click on the Edit icon given beside the workflow name, at the top left corner of the canvas. A new window appears from where you can modify workflow details such as name, tags and description. Once you have entered these details, click on Done.
Step 3: Set up trigger
To select a trigger, hover on the Start icon and click the Settings icon that appears.
This opens a window which lists all the trigger applications supported by webMethods.io Integration. Each of these applications has multiple triggers. To create this workflow, we will look for Twitter and select it.
You will see the trigger configuration window for Twitter. To set up the trigger, enter the required input all the fields.
- Trigger Label: Provide a suitable name for this trigger.
- Select Trigger: Select the trigger which will fire off the workflow. For this workflow, we will select the New Tweet or Retweet Posted by Me event.
- Authorize Twitter: From the dropdown list, select the account that you want to use to execute the trigger or click on the + button to add a new account. Once you add an account, you can use it to execute all other Twitter actions and triggers.
After entering all the details, click Save. This will redirect you to the Test trigger window, where you can check if you have configured the trigger settings properly.
To test your trigger, you need to perform the trigger event, that is, post a new tweet or retweet from the account that you used for authorization, and then click on the Test button.
If you have configured the trigger correctly, you will see the output data for the trigger. This output data will then be used to configure the rest of the workflow. Click on Done to return to the canvas.
Step 4: Set up an action
To set up the Gmail - Send an Email action, look for Gmail in the Connectors menu and drag-and-drop it onto the canvas.
Next, connect it to the Stop icon by dragging a line between them. You can do this by hovering on the icon and clicking on the small circle that appears.
Now, let us configure the Gmail connector. Hover over the icon and click on the settings icon that appears. In the window that opens, select Send an Email as the action and provide values for the input fields, as you did in the previous step. After you have entered all the details, click Next.
This will redirect you to the Send an Email action configuration window. To set up the action, enter the email ID(s) of the user(s) to whom you want to send the tweet content followed by a suitable subject for the email.
On the left hand side of the window, under trigger data, you will see the list of output keys retrieved from the previous trigger test execution. In the Body field, add the text key as an input. This will include the content (text) of the tweet in the body of the email when the workflow is executed.
Once you have entered all the details, click Next. This will take you to the Test action window, where you can check if you have configured the action correctly. After testing the action, click Done to return to the canvas.
Step 5: Save and test your workflow
Click on Save to save the workflow that you just created.
Now, you need to test the workflow to check if it runs correctly.
To start the workflow, reproduce the trigger event. In other words, post a new tweet on Twitter. Since Twitter is a polling trigger, it takes a few seconds to start the workflow. Once the workflow is completed, check your inbox for any emails from webMethods.io Integration. You will have received an email containing the tweet content.
Clone a workflow
You can copy workflows to different Projects and share them with other users in your tenant. To do this, open the Project in which the workflow is saved.
Locate the workflow and click on the vertical ellipsis on the top right hand side of the workflow card and click on Clone Workflow.
In the window that appears, add a suitable name for the workflow and select the Project to which you want to clone the workflow. When you click on Clone, the workflow will be added as a copy in the selected Project.
Test a workflow
The Test icon lets you test a workflow manually. It executes the workflow to check whether everything has been configured properly.
To test a workflow, click on the play button located next to the Save option in your workflow canvas.
Once the testing has begun, webMethods.io Integration displays a real-time visualization of the workflow execution.
You can check the execution details of the workflow from the Debug Panel or view its log from the Workflow Execution History tab.
Export a workflow
You can export your custom workflows to your local storage. Here is how to do it.
Navigate to the Project in which the workflow is saved. Locate the workflow that you want to export and click on the vertical ellipsis icon. From the dropdown options, select Export Workflow.
On this page, you can update the workflow details such as name, description and field descriptions.
When you are done, click Export. The workflow will be saved along with all its configurations as a zip file on your local storage. To use this workflow again, you can simply upload the zip file in webMethods.io Integration from the My Recipes section.
Import a recipe
Recipes are custom-made workflows available in webMethods.io Integration. There are two options to import a recipe:
1. Import a Recipe to My Recipes
When you click on the Recipes tab, you will see the + Import Recipe button under My Recipes. It allows you to import workflows from your local storage. Click on the button to open the upload window and select the zip file of the workflow that you wish to import.
Once you do this, you will be redirected to the My Recipes screen, which will display the workflow that you just uploaded.
2. Import a Recipe to a Project
From the All Recipes section, you can import a workflow to your Projects.
Each workflow card contains the name of the workflow and the icons of the connectors being used in the workflow.
Click on the workflow card that you want to import. You will be prompted to specify the project where you want to import the workflow.
After selecting the Project, you will be redirected to the Import Recipe screen. Here, you need to add the required accounts and lookups (if any) for the connectors being used in the workflow. Once you are done, click on Import to import this workflow in the selected Project.
If you wish to submit your workflows to the All Recipes section, contact our support team.
Note that the workflows present in the All Recipes section are available globally to all webMethods.io Integration users.
Debug Panel
The Debug panel provides the execution details of the most recently executed workflow. It includes two sections:
- Acions
- Logs
Actions
This section contains the details of the actions used in your workflow. It includes the following parameters:
- Name: This is the name of the action used in the workflow. When you click on the action name, you will see a new panel which shows the input and output details of this action.
- Status: It displays whether the workflow was executed or not.
- Time: The time taken to execute the workflow
- Timeline: The timeline of the workflow execution
Logs
This section contains the output details of the action and errors, if any.
The Debug panel also shows the following details for each executed workflow:
- Duration: The time spent on executing the workflow
- Last Run: The most recent date and time at which the workflow was executed
- Credits Used: The number of credits used to execute the workflow
- Container: The container size being used for the workflow execution
Understanding the Workflow Settings
Every workflow has its own Settings panel. To access a workflow’s settings, open the workflow’s canvas page and click on the Settings icon located at the top right corner.
This opens a new window which includes three tabs. Let us have a look at each of these in detail.
Accounts
The Accounts section lists all the accounts being used in the workflow.
Under each account name, you will see the workflow actions that are using this particular account. Deleting an account from this panel only removes it from this workflow. The account will still be available in other workflows in which it is being used.
Parameters
The Parameters section displays the list of all the parameters being used in the workflow. From here, you can create a new parameter or update an existing one directly.
Execution Settings
This section allows you to modify the settings for your workflow execution.
- Container size: The bigger the size of your container, the faster is the execution of your workflow. Currently, you can select 256 MB or 512 MB to execute your workflow, which consumes one credit and two credits respectively.
- Flow runtime: Specify the time after which the workflow execution should be terminated. Currently, the value for this field is set to 3 minutes but you can extend it up to 30 minutes.
- Maintain activity log: It allows you to check the execution history of your workflow. Once you enable it, the following details are displayed.
- Date: All the dates when the workflow was executed
- Status: Whether the workflow execution was successful or failed
- Action: The View Log button opens a window which displays the logs in detail
- Auto Connect: Choose whether subsequent connectors should automatically connect to the previous connectors when you drag them on to the canvas.
- Shows real-time visualization of workflow when executed via webhook or trigger: Enable or disable the live visualization of your workflow execution.
- Retry executing failed actions 3 times before stopping the workflow: Enabling this option informs webMethods.io Integration to run a failed workflow two more times, before it terminates the execution. This prevents the need to manually re-execute a workflow, which failed the first time due to a momentary error.
- Save status of each successfully executed action: This is useful when you are working with complex workflows containing several actions. Once you enable this, the workflow saves the status of each successfully executed action. So, if the workflow fails due to an error, you can resume the execution right from the point it failed.
Conclusion
Exercises
Now that you have completed our Product Guide, here are a few exercises for you. These will help you gain practical understanding of how to use webMethods.io Integration to achieve your business goals.
- Create a channel in Slack for new tickets in Freshdesk
- Log new Evernote notes into Smartsheet rows
- Send notifications via Gmail for completed tasks in Asana
- Set conditions between two actions of your workflow
- Schedule a workflow to run at a particular date and time
- Add a new connector of your choice to webMethods.io Integration
Resources
Popular Workflows
Developer Guide
Tutorials
FAQ
Support
For any assistance, contact us at support-wmio@softwareag.com or visit our Support page.
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