Creating a Blank Flow (Flow without a Trigger)

When creating a flow in the Flogo App, you can create it without a trigger. This method of creating a blank flow is useful when the logic for the flow is available but you do not know just yet what action should activate the flow. You can start by creating a flow with the logic and attach it to one or more triggers at a later time.

1. Click an app name on the Apps page in TIBCO Cloud Integration - Flogo (PAYG) to open its page.
2. Click the +Create if this is the first flow in the app. If one or more flows exist, click the Create button.
   The Create flows and triggers dialog opens.
3. Enter a name for the flow in the Name text box.
   Flow names within an app must be unique. An app cannot contain two flows with the same name.
4. Optionally, enter a brief description of what the flow does in the Description text box. The New flow button is selected by default.
   To create a flow from a Swagger specification, refer to Using a Swagger Specification for details. To create a flow from a GraphQL schema, refer to Using a GraphQL Schema for details.
5. Click Create.
   You will be prompted to select one of the following options:

   

6. Select Configure flow inputs and outputs
   The flow gets created with the flow details page opens displaying the Input Settings tab of the Flow Inputs & Outputs tab. Mapping trigger outputs to flow inputs and flow outputs to trigger reply creates a contract between the trigger and the flow. Hence, when you attach the flow to a trigger later, you must map the output of the trigger to the input to the flow. You have the option to attach your flow to one or more triggers at any later time after the flow has been created. See Attaching a Flow to One or More Triggers for details.
7. Enter a JSON schema containing the input fields to the flow in the Input Settings tab.
8. Enter the JSON schema containing the flow output fields in the Output Settings tab.
9. Click the left facing arrow on top of the blue label when done to retract the Flow Inputs & Outputs page.
10. Add a Return activity to the flow. Click and drag the Return activity to the right to make room to add other activities.
11. Hover your mouse over the shaded square to expose the add activity button (). Click the add activity button to add an activity.
    After adding an activity, be sure to configure its properties by clicking on the activity tile. If there are any errors in the activity, fix the errors before proceeding. See Errors and Warnings section for more details.
12. Continue adding activities by clicking the successive () buttons. To add an activity between two exisiting activities, you can drag the activities to the right in order to make room for the new activity then click the button to add the new activity.
13. Click the Return activity to configure the parameters that the flow outputs after completing execution. The Return activity displays the parameters that you had configured in the Output Settings tab of the Flow Inputs & Outputs dialog.

    Anything that the flow outputs after execution must be mapped into the Return activity of the flow. If any trigger needs to send a response back to a server, its output must be mapped to the output of the Return activity.

14. When you are ready to add a trigger, refer to Adding Triggers to a Flow to add one or more triggers to the flow. For triggers that need to send back a response to the server, you must map the flow output (elements in the Return activity) to the reply of the trigger (Map from Flow Outputs tab in the trigger configuration dialog).