Flow

The flows are designed to build business rules and simplify the selection process of information, and to provide a visual picture of what information is flowing. In the flows data can be read, updated, deleted or added. The flows are also the place where integrations can be built.

A flow can best be described as a work flow to support business processes. The looks of it is a hierarchy where data flows from the top node through the hierarchy, a step in the flow represents one or more steps of the process. The process can be divided into one or more branches, and by doing so Sweet Automation can handle several proccesses simultaneously within one flow to give a good overview and structure. But, as mentioned above the flow does not only support business proccesses, it is also a platform to build integrations, a tool to collect data, visualize it, group it and use for business analyzes.

Advantages of using Flows:

• Build advanced business rules
• Automate one or more processes and keep everything in one place
• Visual image of a work process
• Simplifies the selection process
• Combine selection from several different data sources
• Ability to easily divide target groups into one or more legs
• Ability to schedule / execute one or more parts of a flow
• Ability to run one or more actions in one flow

Before you start

Before your start building your flow, you must know what you want the end result, the outcome, to be and what kind of data that will be used in the flow. These decisions will be the foundation of where to start, and how to build your flow. Each flow is a blank sheet before you start building it, and the top node determines what can be done within the flow and controls the outcome. Think through what datasources and outcomes you are looking for.

Reflect upon what you would like to achieve,

• Are you about to send an email to all of your customers that only has one more month before their ensurance ends, a remider?
• Are you about to make automatic decisions in an onboarding process of whether a person can be a customer of yours, based on a digital form?
• Are you going to set up a recurring GDPR delete session of data that has not been in use for more than a year?
• Are you looking to collect customer data from your CRM to prefill a document to sign, and sent it to the signing party upon click?
• Are you looking to integrate a database of yours, and automate proccesses of how to handle the data, based on certain conditions or rules?
• Are you planning to automate and digitalize your customer lifecycle and activly integrate with your customers based on who they are, how they bahave and for how long they have been customers?
• Are you going to create reminders for open cases, business opportunities or work orders that has not been closed in a certain time?
• Are you planning to make magic and let new technique and ideas do things for you, and totally replace manual work?

Flow basics

Before you begin to build the flow, some simple explanations.

Execute means that to perform the action, flow or selection that your working with. The function will start to run, and do whatever it has been configured to do.

Flow is a function in Sweet Automation where proccesses can be built to integrate Sweet Automation with other systems, to automate and/ or digitalize a process, or to analyze and group your data.

Flow key is a unique value that represent a singel flow participant, it can for example be an email address, a company organization number or a personal number.

Flow participants The data that loads the flow can be described as the flow participants, a single flow participant can be for instance an email, a person or a company.

Flow boxes and actions

A flow is built up of actions and flow boxes. Standard flows have access to both actions and flow boxes, ETL flow has only actions, no flow boxes.

Actions

Actions are used to load flows, move/copy or perform items on a target group in a flow.

By clicking an action, the setting dialog for the action will open up at the right.

Flow boxes

Flow boxes hold participants. Participants enter the top of the flow and are then divided into the flow via actions that take care of it and perform things.

Each flow box has a number to the right. That number indicates how many participants are in this box.

By clicking a box, a dialog will open up at the right. The dialog will show you the result/participants in the box. (Via the “Base template” in flow settings).

Flow menu bar

At the top is a menu with various functions for the flow.

Play The Play button starts the flow from the top action, this is where you manually Execute the flow.

Find participant is a freetext search field where you can search for parameters of flow participants, it could be a name or participant ID.

Gear icon The gear icon opens up the setting dialog for the flow. See Flow settings

Trash bin The trash bin button is to clear the flow from all participants. This button is only visible when the flow is in “Preview mode”.

New selection is a button where you can quickly add a new selection that you want to use in your flow. Read more about Selections.

Toggle ETL/Standard flow Button to toggle between standard flow and the child (etl) flow. Every standard flow has its own child flow. The child flow is an ETL-flow witch purpose is to be able to run actions on the whole flow not depending on boxes.

Pen The pen icon is the edit button that opens up the toolbox with actions and tasks.

Zoom Buttons to zoom in or out the flow.

How to build a flow

Create new flow

1. Start by building up your structure with folders using the main menu.

2. Select the folder to which you want to create a new flow.

3. Click on the three-point menu to the right and select “New flow”.

4. Choose if you would like to build a new flow, or use an existing flow template. Get started building your flow.

5. A blank page opens. To the right you can see the settings for the flowm go direcly to flow settings. Start by giving the flow a name. The flow and flow name is autosaved.

Use a flow template to create your flow

When creating a new flow, you get to choose if you would like to create a new blank flow or use an existing template. If templates are available, they will be visible in the pop-up with name and ID after clicking Create new flow.

Note

Everything but action configuration is copied when using a flow template. Make sure you look through your actions, if actions are available in the template.

Start building

In this section we will go through the basics of a standard flow.

Once you have your newly created flow ready, the flow settings opens automatically and this is the place where you give the flow a name and configure it. Go to flow settings directly to read more, or come back to the flow settings after your flow is built.

To build your flow, click the pen icon in the flow action bar to start editing.

To the right the toolbox with all the actions and tasks opens, that can be used to build your flow.

Add new action

Usually, you start by placing a loading action as the top node of a flow. This loading action determines what type of datasource that will feed your flow with data. You can read more about the different load flow actions here.

To select your first action, simply click the pen/ edit symbol in the top bar of your flow, and all available actions and tasks will open in the content box to the right. Use Drag and drop to select your action, and drop it on the work area.

When your action is available in the work area, you can either continue building your flow by adding more actions/ tasks, or go directly to editing of the specific action using Action settings.

About your top node

When you add your first action it will appear in the flow as the top node, the first action is per default Active, but unless your flow is Active it can not be run. Most action boxes get a default name to describe it, and it can easily be changed by clicking the box and change the name.

To continue adding new actions or tasks you must drop them on the node you want it to come after, and these are per default not active.

Active or inactive

An Inactive action is illustrated by a broken line, and Active action is illustrated by a line. To change the status, click the action and activate/ deativate it, read more here

When done

When you have built your flow structure using actions and tasks, you must configure each action or task of your flow for it to know what data to fetch, what type of information your data contains and how you want the flow to work. Go directly to action configuration

Flow settings

The flow settings appear when you first create a new flow, or when you edit an existing flow. To edit an existing flow, click the gear symbol in the top bar of the flow.

Auto save

All flow settings are automatically saved, when exiting the edit view, or clicking outside the edit box the changes are saved.

Flow state

When creating a new flow, it’s flow state is automatically set to Preview mode where you can laborate with it. In order to run the flow and its actions, the flow state must be set to Active. Flows that are not in use anymore should be set to Inactive to stop them from being executed.

Note

Preview mode is default selected for all new flows. This means that no “high-risk” actions will run as long as the flow is in Preview mode. This is a security feature that allows you to be able to build and test your flows without risking, for example, sending mail or creating activities in other systems while building and testing. For each action in the system, one defines whether the action is high-risk or not.

Export is a function for exporting an entire flow structure so that it can then be imported into another environment. Exports carry the entire chain of actions. However, it does not take with you certain settings that can be made in an action because they can be tightly connected to the environment the action is configured for.

Empty is a function for emptying your flow of participants.

Delete button removes the entire flow. However, you cannot delete a flow containing participants. Before removing a flow, you must first empty the flow of participants.

General flow settings

Click the gear symbol in the top bar of the flow to open the flow settings.

Flow identification

When creating a new flow, each flow gets its unique ID, you can see it both in the edit view of the flow, and in the end of the flow URL. The ID is useful when for example sending flow participants between flows using the Move action, or when you want to search for a specific flow.

When you are on a flow you can also see its ID up in the browser’s URL.

By copying the URL one can send it to other users as a direct link to the flow. Or if you want to navigate to the flow from other systems.

Name the flow

Text box where you give the flow its name, this can be changed later.

Types of flows

In Sweet Automation you can create two types of flows, “Standard” or “ETL”. When creating a new flow, do you have to decide what type of flow you want? “Sandard” is default, and the most common type of flows.

Flows can be used in several ways. Process target groups, automate processes, build integrations, etc.

Standard flow

A standard flow has actions and boxes. The flow is started from the top where in most cases a target group is loaded. The target group is in so-called boxes. Between each box there is an action that distributes or performs things on the target group. The target group is distributed through the flow. A flow can be run manually, via scheduling or triggered from outside.

FlowParticipants:

• A flow can be loaded with anything

  • Persons
  • Companies
  • Cases
  • E-Mail
  • Activities
  • Machines
  • Products
  • and so on

• We call these target group for Participants or FlowParticipants.

Basic rule for standard flow:

• A flow is loaded with a predefined key, FlowKey. This key should be unique to each participant to be loaded into the flow. (This is done in “Flow Settings”).

• A flow is only loaded with unique keys (FlowKey) No duplicates are allowed.

• When a participant gets loaded to a flow, it cannot re-enter. You can load as many times as you like, but the participants who are already loaded will not return (no duplicates).

• The only way for a participant to re-enter a flow is:

  • When the participant is deleted from the flow. Then its allowed to enter again.
  • When the participant is disabled in the flow. Then its allowed to enter again. The disabled one stays where it is.

For each box you can see down to the right how many participants are in the box. The box can be opened to watch its participants by clicking it.

ETL flow

In an ETL flow there is no information flowing. Instead, one can build a chain of actions that perform things. It may be, for example, to build integrations, move, update, create, export data for one or more data sources.

Logging

Logging is not default when creating a new flow. If Logging is selected, all participants in a flow will log the way it flows through, when? where? how? This is saved in a separate table that is linked to your flow. Logging can generate very large amounts of data so you have to think about it so that the disk space does not run out or the space starts to cost a lot of unnecessary money. If not necessary, the recommendation is have it off.

Contains sensitive data

“Contains sensitive data” is merely a label if the flow contains sensitive data. This tag has a link to the GDPR action included with the system. In the GDPR action, you have the ability to filter out the flows that have just “Contain sensitive data” checked. The flow builder is recommended to set this flag is flow can contain sensitive data. Sensitive data can, for example, be personal data such as e-mail addresses, social security numbers or the like

Status and visibility

The status and visability settings are key to secure your flow from being changed by others, or by mistake. You have the opportunity to limit who has the authority to make changes to certain flows, all users, only administrators or only Sweet Systems. This works the same way as for selection

Status

• Open = Flow is open for changes. Anyone can change this selection.
• Locked = Flow is locked for everyone except you and administrators.
• Sealed = Flow is locked for everyone, including you and administrators. It can only be unlocked with help from Sweet Systems.

Tip

Only use Sealed after finishing, testing and confirming the flow properly, after sealing it changes cannot be made by you anymore.

Publish flow

• Active = The flow is available for Sweet Automation’s API. When publishing the flow you need to define for what users or user groups it should be available, and what kind for rights they should have.
• Inactive = The flow is not available for Sweet Automation’s API.

About the API settings

• Propagate to apply the settings fo sub-user groups
• R = the permission to Read (see) data from the flow
• W = the permission to Write (update or overwrite) data to the flow
• E = the permission to Execute (run or get) data from the flow
• A = the permission to Read, Write and Execute (all) data from the flow

See also

How to give API rights to users or user groups

Visible

• Active = Selection is visible for everyone.
• Inactive = Selection is only visible for you and administrators.

Key

“Key” is a free text field where you can give the flow a unique name that should not be visible in the interface. This key can then be used via the REST-Api that comes with Sweet Automation. The key can therefore be good if you want to call the flow.

Flow setting done

When you’re done with your flow settings. Close the dialog via the close button at the top left of the dialog, the settings are autosaved.

Use a selection template

For a flow, you can define that a selection template should be used to return data to a flow box. Here you also determine which field / attribute to use as a flow key. Here you prefer to choose a field that is unique to the participants on which the flow is to be based. A flow can be based on anything, example:

• Persons (Flow key: PersonId, SSN, e-mail etc (something unique)).
• Companies (Flow key: CompanyId, OrganizationalNumber CustomerNumber etc (something unique)).
• Cases (Flow key: CaseId, CaseNumber (something unique)).
• Forms (Flow key: ResultSetId, ResultNumber (something unique)).
• Machines (Flow key: MachineId, RegistrationNumber, SerialNumber (something unique)).
• Product (Flow key: ProductId, ProductNumber, SerialNumber (something unique)).
• Bookings (Flow key: BookingId, BookingNumber (something unique)).
• Activities (Flow key: ActivityId (something unique)).
• etc

Select your template

Select your template by either

1. Search for the template via the drop down box, “Selection template”, or,
2. Drag and drop. Select selection template from your navigation tree and drop it in the “Selection Template” block.

In below example a selection of “All private persons” is being used.

FlowKey A “FlowKey” should be selected from the result columns included in the selected selection template. Remember! A FlowKey should be something unique from your selection template such as ID, email address, organization number etc. In this example, we select “PersonId”.

Datatype When FlowKey is selected, the data type for the field will automatically be set. If it is not successful or you want to choose another data type, you can choose another. The data types that can be selected are:

1. Int Numerical value.
2. String Text value.
3. Uniqueidentifier GUID.

Our Flowkey (PersonId) is set to Uniqueidentifier.

No selection template If you do not choose to set a template”, a flow box will display the data associated with your FlowKey. Some actions will update this information if it is missing.

Details

The flow details tab can be used to further describe a flow, how it works, what status it has, between what dates it’s valid or as an instruction of how to use it. This is also the place where you can make the flow a reusable Template.

Start/End - Period

Start and end are date fields that are linked to the active period of the flow. Default is these empty which means that the flow has no active or inactive period. Here, only the “Active” flag determines whether the flow is active or not.

However, should one specify a period through Start and End then the flow will only be active within that period, provided the “Active” flag is checked. Outside this period, the flow will not be active, even if the “Active” status is selected.

Use as template

Activate Use as template when you would like to be able to select it every time creating a new flow. It will be available with name and ID for you to create a copy of it time after time. Before you activate a copied flow, make sure all configuration and the flow settings work as expected.

Status

Status is metadata about a flow. It can be used to set the status of a flow. No functions are associated with status.

Category

Category is the metadata about the flow for how you would like to categorize the flow. This can be good for follow-up purposes if you have reports that should aggregate or group information about flows.

Purpose

Purpose is the metadata of the flow for how you would like to categorize the flow. This can be good for follow-up purposes if you have reports that should aggregate or group information about flows.

Budget

Budget is the metadata about the flow that can be used for follow-up to be able to calculate the outcomes for a flow

Expected ROI

Expected ROI is the metadata about the flow that can be used for follow-up to be able to calculate the outputs of a flow

Description

Description can be used to describe the flow.

Flow data storage

“Flow storage” is a setting where you determine where your flow data should be stored. By default, the “Legacy” type is selected. With “Legacy” it means using the built-in structure that comes with Sweet Automation. Here, all flows are saved down in the same structure, ie a common storage area. If you choose to store your flow data elsewhere, you first need to create a connection in the admin tool. See below:

Legacy storage

“Legacy storage” saves all flow data into a common structure that comes with Sweet Automation. Driving in Legacy is very easy and easy to get started. However, the downside may be that over time, this structure can become very large and take up a lot of space. It can also affect performance. All data stored in the flow is also stored in a dynamic structure which is more difficult to use if you want to make selection directly against the flow.

Self storage

With “Self storage” you choose where your flow and the information in the flow should be saved. In order to make this possible, you first need to add a link in the administration tool. The link determines where you can save your flows. Today you can choose between:

• Microsoft SQL-Server
• My SQL
• Oracle
• Google Big Query

The connection can be both internal and external.

When in Flow Settings you choose your own storage location, a structure per flow will be created in this data source. This means that each flow has its own isolated structure. The structure is flat and built dynamically in conjunction with adding more data through actions. There is also created a separate selection data source for the flow, which allows you to easily build selection against a flow.

Execution and scheduling

All actions in a flow can be scheduled or executed in one way or another. Scheduling means that you decide when/ how often the flow actions should execute (run). Execution means that you run the flow and it’s taska and actions.

To the left of all actions is a symbol that indicates how the action is executed, in this example it’s manual and a person icon illustrates that. To change it, simply click the icon and edit the settings.

Manual

A manual action is illustrated by the icon of a person, and to execute a manual flow you can either

1. Press the play button, to start from the top and run all actions set to Auto

2. Open each action or task, and execute them one by one by using the Execute button

However the flow must be Active to execute it.

Scheduled

The clock shows that the action is scheduled. An action can be both scheduled and set to automatic execution. In above example the flow runs automatically every day, once an hour between March and June.

Automatically

Below action has a flash icon next to it that means the action runs automatically, i.e. as soon as the previous action above is completed.

The “Auto” setting is available both on the scheduling icon, and in the action settings. By default “Auto” is active.

Note

If Auto is checked, the action will be executed if triggered by the above action regardless of whether the action itself has its own scheduling. That is, it will execute both through the previous action and its own scheduling.)

See example below:

1. The “First” action is schedule for each full hour.
2. The “Second” action is schedule for every monday at 1:30 pm

3. The “**Second” action is set to Auto!!! (flash)

Outcome for this is:

• The “First” action will run each full hour.
• The “Second” action will also run each full hour, just after the “First” action is done. (Because of “Auto”).
• And the “Second” action will also run every monday at 1:30 pm.

Conclusion: The second action can be run from two different schedules.

Schedule / Manual actions

To set a schedule for an action, open the scheduling dialog. This can be done in two ways:

1. To click the symbol to the left of the action.

2. To open the action and click the “Schedule” button.

There are 6 different choices for scheduling:

The default for all action is that they are set for manual execution. You choose scheduling through the drop down box.

1. Once. Only one time execution. See Once for more detailed information.

2. Daily. Daily execution. See Daily for more detailed information.

3. Weekly. Weekly execution. See Weekly for more detailed information.

4. Monthly. Monthly execution. See Monthly for more detailed information.

5. Yearly. Yearly execution. See Yearly for more detailed information.

6. Manual. Manual execution.

   By manual execution is meant that the action can only be run manually or triggered by another system from outside.

   The action is executed manually by opening the action and clicking the “Execute” button

   See below Manual for more detailed information.

Below we describe in detail how each sheaduling option works

Once

• Execute. Type of execution.
• Date. The actual date the action will run.
• Daily frequency. If the action will run once or many times that actual date. (In this case only once).
• Time. The actual time the action will run for the specific date.

(In the example below, the action is scheduled to run on 2019-06-11, at the time 8:15 a.m.)

Daily frequency has 4 different options:

1. One. Only one specific time.
2. Every hour. Every x hours. X hours is defined in the “Every” textbox.
3. Every minute. Every x minutes. X minutes is defined in the “Every” textbox.
4. Every second. Every x seconds. X seconds is defined in the “Every” textbox.

When choosing a choice other than “Once”, two text boxes will appear, where you can define between which times the action can be executed. If nothing is stated in these text boxes, the action will run all day.

(In the example below, the action is scheduled to run on 2019-06-11, every 3 hours, between 8:00 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.)

Daily

Daily execution means that the action will run every X day. X is defined in the text box “Every”.

With “Daily” execution also gives you the opportunity to tell between which dates the action should be executed. If you leave these blank, the action will be executed forever.

See also Daily frequency

(In the example below, the action will execute every day at 8:15 am between 2019-04-01 to 2020-09-30.)

Weekly

Weekly execution means that the action will run every X week. X is defined in the text box “Every”.

With “Weekly” execution also gives you the opportunity to tell between which dates the action should be executed. If you leave these blank, the action will be executed forever.

For “Weekly” you also have the option of selecting specific days during the week that the action is to be run.

See also Daily frequency

(In this example, the action will be executed every two weeks on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 08-15 a.m. between 2019-04-01 to 2020-09-30)

Monthly

Monthly execution means that the action will run every X month. X is defined in the text box “Every”.

With “Monthly” execution also gives you the opportunity to tell between which dates the action should be executed. If you leave these blank, the action will be executed forever.

With “Monthly” there is an extra choice, “Specific week in month”. If “Specific week in month” has the value “None” you get even one more field, “Day”. With Day you decide witch day in the month the action will execute.

See also Daily frequency

(In the example below, the action is scheduled on the 13th of every month at 8:15 am.)

Specific week in month

Specific week in month has several values ​​to choose from for monthly driving. Except for “None” there are:

1. First. First week in month.
2. Second. Second week in month.
3. Third. Third week in month.
4. Fourth. Fourth week in month.
5. Last. Last week in month.

If you have selected one of the above, the weekdays are also shown, here you also have to choose which week day or week days the action is to be executed.

(In the example below, the action is scheduled every four hours, between 7:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, the third week of each month between the dates of January 1, 2015 and December 20, 2006)

Yearly

Yearly execution means that the action will run every X Years. X is defined in the text box “Every”.

With “Yearly” execution also gives you the opportunity to tell between which dates the action should be executed. If you leave these blank, the action will be executed forever.

With yearly execution, you also have the choice to choose a specific day during the year in which the action is to be run.

(In the example below, the action will be executed on June 15 at 8:15 am. every year.)

Manual

By manual execution is meant that the action can only be run manually or triggered by another system from outside.

The action is executed manually by opening the action and clicking the “Execute” button

Execution status

When an action has been run, one finds a symbol to the right of it. There are three different symbols:

1. Execution ongoing
2. Success
3. Failed

Below you can see that the top charge action has been successfully run.

Below you can see that the second action (split) has been executed, but failed.

By bringing the mouse over symbol, a tooltip is displayed with information about the execution and any errors.

Example flows

Example 1 - Load flow from selection

The aim of this flow is to load all Private persons that exist in the CRM system to the flow. The selection, connected to the Sweet CRM, already exist and will be used to load the flow with its flow participants.

1. When you have created your flow, click the pen symbol to start editing your first flow action
2. Select the Load action called Selection by Drag and dropping the Selection icon to the flow area.

3. Click the Selection icon in the flow area to get to Action settings. In the drop down menu, look for the Selection you have already created (or create a new one by clicking + Create).

4. Best practices is to define the flow key already, to do so click Add participant information and choose the Result coulmn that has a unique value that can be used as an ID for the flow. In this example, where Private peresons are used, the column PersonId is suitable.

5. To load the flow with the selection, click Execute and Sweet Automation will start collecting and generating the results of the flow and the selection. When the action is finished, it stops spinning and you can see the green “Success” icon to the right and you will have the same amount of flow participants in your flow box, as results in your Selection.

Now the action can be run over and over again without recharging the same participant again. Only new participants can add to the flow.

6. The settings are automatically saved, so to close the action settings click the X
7. You can continue building your flow with several tasks or actions, as in this example, we continue by sending an e-mails asking all the private persons to update their contact information. If e-mail has not been opened in 24 hours, we send a reminder. For those who update their information, we update the Sweet One CRM with the data. In the first split, we divide the successfully sent e-mails from the failing ones - and later delete the fails.

Note

Note that there are two “Active” flags. The top of the head activates or deactivates the action. The one on the right activates or deactivates the actual leg between action and box.

Example 2 - Split action

Now that the entire target group is loaded, we want to divide it inte multiple boxes. In order to divide the target group, we use the “Split” action, the most common action of them all.

Read more about the split action: Split

Via “drag and drop” you can apply the action in the flow. Grab the action and pull out and drop it on the box you want to split. The box lights up when you can release the action.

Efter you released the action you can se it as below. The split action is now connected to the box above. After the split action there is a blue box.

In this case we want to add more boxes. From the toolbox you can grab a box at the top, and drag it out and release it on the split action. (You can only release a box on actions, not other boxes. Actions can have 0 or multiple boxes connected to them. The split action have no limitation of boxes)

Two boxes connected to the split action.

We add up to 4 boxes in this example.

Now that all boxes are extended, you can open the action. In the setting dialog to the right you can see that nothing is configured in the action.

The configuration can be done by connecting a selection template, using the TOP function or the time function or combining all three.

Now we can reuse two selection templates that we already have. These can be pulled out to resp. box. Remember that the left box has the highest priority (in the setting dialog it is the top row that has high priority). In the Setting dialog you can change the priority of the boxes by dragging and dropping them in the right priority.

Also remember that it is important that the selection templates used in a split action must contain the field that is linked to FlowKey (see Flow settings). Other considerations can be made with then more advanced knowledge is required.

Drag out the selection template and release it to a box. Rekomendation is to start with the highest priority.

After you have set the two existing templates Fund, Savings and Private and Fund, you can see that they are set in the setting dialog, but not activated.

Activate the legs and then click “EXECUTE”.

Now the action is starting to execute. It starts with the selection template that has the highest priority (far left). The selection template retrieves its participants and compares them with the box above. Those who match are moved down to the box. Those that are not matched remain in the box above. When the first leg is ready, the one that comes second in priority starts. Only activated legs are running.

When the action is complete, it can be seen that some participants remain in the box above. This means that these did not match the two active legs in the split action. The other two legs are not configured and active, they have hardly run.

Since we do not have any ready-made selection templates for the remaining legs, you can instead create them directly in the setting dialogue for the split action. Click “CREATE” to create a selection template for the leg.

When you create a template from a flow, as usual, you get the data source on which the template should be based and to give the template a name. The flow data source is preselected.

When you are inside the selection tool, you can see up to the right a button with a flow icon inside. It shows that the selection template has a connection to one or more flows. By clicking on this button, the connected feeds are displayed and you can jump in to the flow.

Unlike when you drag and drop a selection template to a box, here is no name on the box. You have to do this manually by opening the box and putting the name there.

Then open the action, activate the legs and execute the action again. The action now runs all the selection templates left to right and matches all participants in the box above. The participants who could not be matched remain.

Now we want the participants who remain in the upper box to end up in their own box. As before, pull out a new box for the action, give it a name such as “Other”. Open the split action and activate the leg. By just activating the leg without configuring anything more, that leg will have no rule and will function as a fallback where everything else ends up unless otherwise fulfilled. Execute the action again.

As you can see, the remaining participants ended up in the box without rules.

Now it turns out that one would like to have a new split action above the previous one. Ie you want to apply rules before this split.

By moving the mouse over the top of the action, a plus sign lights up. Click on this.

A drop area opens up. Here you can now drag the desired action that should end up above the action you clicked on.

Drag and drop a split action here.

Now a new action has been injected to the flow.

Add another box to the new split action. To the left leg, it should be linked to a selection template that fetches all customers who have some type of account. The second box is activated without a rule and set a different name on it.

Now it is so that all participants are already below this measure. Therefore, empty the flow and run it from the top, or “Play” button.

The flow is executed from the top. When the first action is completed, the next one starts.

Now note that the bottom right box “Other” is empty. This is because they instead ended up in the box to the right. The new rule. This box can still remain as a backup.

The box “Fund, Savings and Private” I now want to divide into 3 different boxes. I create an advanced selection template that produces a target group that has a total of 10 million on their accounts. This template is applied to the first two boxes, (left and center). But we just want to include the left of 1000 of those who have over 10 million. The box to the far right activates us without a rule, which means that these have less than 10 million.

The result of the run is shown below.

But I’m not really happy with my results. I would like to redo the rules for this distribution.

By opening up the toolbox, “Edit”, a hamburger menu lights up in the right corner of all boxes. Click on this to access actions that can be applied directly to the specific box.

In the menu that opens, select “Move” to move participants. All participants in the box will run on this action.

In the “Move” action you get the choice to move participants between boxes within the same flow or move to a completely different flow.

In this particular flow we will move up the participants in the box above. You will find the box in the drop down list by the name of the box. You can also search the box’s Id which is completely unique to the box. (Up to the left of all boxes you see the Id if you have the toolbox open.)

Klicka sedan på “EXECUTE” knappen för att köra åtgärden. Repetera denna procedur för de två andra boxarna.

Once the participants have moved up to the box above, open the action again.

Now we want to change the first rule, instead of the top 1000 we should have the top 10% random.

Then execute the action once more. Below you can see the new result.

The participants in the “Fund” box I want to move after they have been in the box for 1 hour and 30 minutes.

The formula for entering a time is ##d##h## m staring for “days, hours, minutes”.

Enter your time span and activate the action.

Then execute the action.

When the participants have been in the box above for 1h and 30 min, the action will be run, and the participants will be moved down.

The participants in the “Savings” box I want to move to the box “Other”, therefore I use a “Move” action. Pull out and release a “Move” action on the “Savings” box. Then open the action and configure it against the “Other” box, activate the action and run it.

The distribution of participants can continue indefinitely. But precisely for this flow, we feel satisfied and can connect other types of actions to really take action against the now different target groups.

Finally, we can pull out the actions that will perform different things against the target groups. E.g:

• Send e-mail
• Send SMS
• Create Activity in Sweet
• Export target group
• Create TM Activity

But keep in mind that these actions will not run as long as the flow is set for “Preview mode”.

To configure these actions and more, read more about them under Actions

After that, you can either run the flow manually or schedule it.

Good luck and have fun.

Action toolbox

The Action toolbox is the place where you find all the available features for a flow, this is where you pick your pieces to design the whole flow and its functionality.

To open the toolbox, in the flow action bar click on the pen icon to Edit the flow. The toolbox contains all the tools for building a flow or process. The toolbox is grouped into different sections for what type of tool it is. The content of the toolbox depends on the type of flow you are in, standard flow or ETL flow. To select an action, use drag and drop.

Read more about all of the actions here.

Action settings

To edit your action or task, click the symbol of if, and the edit box will open to the right.

Id All actions have a completely unique Id. Id can also be good to use when, for example, you want to perform an operation via Sweet Automation’s Rest API.

Active This is a flag that shows whether the action is active or not. By default, most actions are inactive when creating them. An action that is not active will not run, even if it is scheduled. Activate your action when you are done editing and want to use it.

Auto This flag means that the action will run automatically when the action above has finished. If you click this flag, the flow will stop at this flag and no subsequent actions will be executed. If the action is not set to “Auto” then it is automatically set to manual execution. However, this can be changed via the schedule “Schedule”. E.g. If you want an action to go only for a certain time, then click Auto and instead schedule the action to the desired time. Then there is no risk that the action will be triggered by other flow measures.

If Auto is set, it is displayed as a flash in flow interfaces.

Note

If Auto is checked, the action will be executed if triggered by the above action regardless of whether the action itself has its own scheduling. That is, it will execute both through the previous action and its own scheduling.)

Pass through Means that the action only locks through participants without performing anything against them. This can be equated with the flow “Preview mode”, but Pass through is applied even if the action is “dangerous” or not. Pass through is not set by default.

Execute when empty

Execute Button for manually starting execution of the action. However, the action is required to be active.

Schedule This button allows you to schedule your action automatically. By default, scheduling is set to “Manual” execution for all actions, manual means you must trigger the flow yourself each time. Read more about scheduling under Schedule

Eject button to delete an action.

Note

If you delete an action, all subsequent legs in the flow will also be removed. You may not remove an action if subsequent boxes in the flow contain participants. Subsequent boxes must therefore be empty.

Auto save or Save Some actions have a button “Auto Save” which is greyed out, it is meant that all settings made in the action are automatically saved. If the action instead has a “Save” button that is enabled, you have to manually save your settings.

Action configuration

To edit your action or task, click the symbol of if, and the edit box will open to the right.

Depending on what action you are configuring, the settings vary some. The Action configuration tab is where you edit the basic settings for each action.

Selection

Example of action configuration of a Selection load flow action

Read more about the load action Selection

File

Example of action configuration of a File load flow action

Read more about the load action File

Example of a API load action

Read more about the load action REST API

Execution options

To edit your action or task, click the symbol of if, and the edit box will open to the right.

In the Execution options you can determine when the action is valid, in terms of timeperiods by using the Start and End date.

Start - End. Period for when the action is active or not. By default, these are blank which means that the action is active. If the active flag is set. If Start and End were set, this means that the action can only be active within this period. When the current date passes except this period.

Log verbosity

Number of retries if failed

Continue on error

Filter. Filter function for which participants the action is to run on. Here you can specify a Selection template on which the action is to be run. And to combine with the “Top” function. Instead of making this split a split above, one can instead filter out a target group to which the action is to be run.

Details

The action details tab can be used to further describe an action, how it works, what status it has, between what dates it’s valid or as an instruction of how to use it.

To edit your action or task, click the symbol of if, and the edit box will open to the right, and click the tab Details.

Key. Field to give the action a key. This key can be used, for example, via Sweet Automation’s Rest-api.

Name of the action. All actions have a default name. This can be changed if desired. The name is also displayed in tooltip in the flow if you move the mouse over the icon that is to the right of the action.

Description. Free text box to describe what the action has for purpose or the like.

KPI details. Fields for completing metadata that can be used for follow-up.

WhenExists. Is a flag to set the action to just execute if there are participants in the action above. E.g. A flow is executed from the top and down. When the flow chain has reached an action that has this set and there are no participants in the box above, the chain will be stopped here. By default, this flag is not set, which means that the execution chain continues in all the underlying actions even if the box above has participants or not.

Parameters

To edit your action or task, click the symbol of if, and the edit box will open to the right, then click the tab Parameters.

Action log

To edit your action or task, click the symbol of if, and the edit box will open to the right.

The action log is a detailed log of what has happened, how and when an action has been executed and by whom.

Stop or deactivate a flow

Click the gear icon of the flow to open flow settings, and click the “Inactive” radio button.

Flow participants and nodes

Here you can read about how to find, read more, move or remove flow participants. Under each action or task there are one or more flow nodes, that you can open and see the content of. Simply click the flox node (box) to open it.

Flow box

By opening a box one can see the parts of the content. rather, the top 1000 of the total number of participants. The box opens up on the right side.

The result in the box is depending on the selection template that are set in “Flow settings”.

Note

An important thing with the contents of a flow box is that the only thing that is saved in the flow is FlowKey, in just that case it is PersonId. When a box is opened, the selection template is used to retrieve the remaining data from your data source and dress up the missing information.

General

Name Text box where you can change the name of the box.

Flow participants in the marked blue box, all of the flow participants in the selected flow box are listed with all of the pre defined details and order. By clicking the i icon you can see if there is more information to see.

Delete Button in the upper, right corner to delete the box. But it’s not allowed to delete a box that has participants in it. You must first remove participants before you delete the box.

Count The counter in the lower, left corner shows the number of participants in the flow.

Export Button to export the participants to Excel. The total amount will be exported.

Delete participants delete all of the participants within the box. Hard delete deletes the information from the database as well, meaning no restoring of data can be performed.

Move Button to empty the box of participants and move them elsewhere.

Details

Key. You can set a Key-name for the flow box. This Key can then be used via the API to get the result in it.

Description. Description that you can add to the flowbox. Maybe describes whats in it.

Participant age limit

KPI details. Metadata that can be used for reporting etc.

Webhooks consumers

Add or view existing webhooks consumers.

Triggers

Add or view existing triggers.