Creating Processes
Creating Processes in Symphona Flow enables you to eliminate manual, tedious tasks and improve your organization’s operations using fully no-code tools. In this article, you’ll learn how to design Processes in Symphona Flow, specifically:
- How to use Process Manager
- How to create a new Process in Flow
- The different types of Processes in Flow (”Standard” and “Fallout”)
- How to design, edit, and save Processes in the Process Editor
Let’s dive in!
Tutorial Video
Follow along with us as we explore the Process Editor and how to create a new Process, ready to be executed via one of the many methods (API, public forms, recurring, and more).
Process Manager
Process Manager gives you an overview of all the Processes you have created in Flow. They key components of the Process Manager view are the:
- The Process List View: Provides a quick overview of all Processes you have configured and can be filtered to find your desired Processes. This is the view you first see when you open Process History.
- Each Process in the list view appears as a card which you can hover over and click Edit Process to access the Process Editor for a given Process
- The Process Detail View: Provides access to various settings which are not related to Process logic (e.g. name, description, tags, visibility, and more). This is the view you see when you click on the gear icon on any of the cards of your Processes
Process List View
The Process List View is a part of the Process Manager in Flow. It provides you an overview of all the Processes within your organization. Each card represents a Process. You can view a glance what Processes are active and see high-level details for each Process.
You can filter Processes by various criteria, favourite or archive them. The Process List View is also where you can access the Process Detail View to edit specific Processes. You can favourite and archive Processes, or view the Process Detail View by pressing the respective star, drawer, and gear icons at the top right corner of each Process card.
Filtering Processes
- To filter Processes in Process Manager, first select the View All Filters button, next to the Search bar at the top of the screen.
- Then, select your filters, such as the Process Name, Process Type, Tags, or Last Edited Date. Once you click Confirm, the filtered results will be shown in the Process Manager List View.
Process Detail View (Settings)
The Process Detail View contains the settings for your Processes (except for the actual execution logic of the Process, which is located in Process Editor). It’s a section of the Process Manager that provides information about a specific Process, including its name, description, tags, and visibility to users.
From this view, you can:
- View and edit Process details (name, description, and tags)
- Archive, export, duplicate, or delete a Process
- Enable public submission forms as a method to execute a Process
- Manage the visibility settings (what Users / User Groups are able to see a Process)
As noted in the last section, to access the Process Detail View, you will need to click on the gear icon in the top right corner of the desired Process card.
After clicking on the gear icon, the Process Detail View will appear and look similar to the example shown below.
Creating New Process
To create a new Process in Flow:
- Navigate on the side-menu to Flow > Process Manager and click on the button New Process in the top right corner of the view.
- After clicking on the button, you will be prompted to fill in some details for your new Process, including a name, description, Process Type (which for most use cases should just be “Standard” - we’ll go over this in a later section), tags, and visibility. Once everything looks good, click Confirm.
Process Types
Process Type determines the steps that you have available for use in the Process Editor Step Library and the purpose of a given Process. There are three types of Processes that you can create in Symphona:
- Standard: Define Processes to automate and streamline operations (the default Process Type - should be used in most cases).
- Fallout: Define Processes to automatically triage Fallouts (instead of them being sent directly to Symphona Resolve).
- Migrate (only available within the Enterprise plan): Define Processes for use in various stages of Symphona Migrate data migration projects.
You can select your Process type when you’re creating a new Process. If you want to change the Process Type of an existing Process, you can do so within the Process Manager Detail View for the given Process.
Process Editor
The Process Editor is the no-code interface you use to design Processes. There are two main components to the Process Editor:
- Editor View: Displays the flow of steps of the current Process being designed.
- Step Library: Provides a collection of Process steps that you can drag-and-drop into your Process to build it out.
- Settings: Enables you to configure aspects like the expected input parameters and fallout destination.
Editor View
Edit and create Processes by dragging and dropping steps from the Step Library into nodes with a “+” icon in the Editor View.
Clicking on a step enables you to edit its configuration. This allows you to set up the input data configuration and output parameters of each step.
Logical Expressions
Several steps in the Process Editor enable you to write expressions, including the Conditional Branch and Evaluate Expression steps. You have the ability to use logical operators within these expressions and can view our tutorial on them here.
Step Library
The Step Library contains a wide variety of steps you can drag-and-drop into your Process flow. Details on all of the currently available steps can be found here.
Settings
The Settings section allows you to modify the Process name, input parameters, and the fallout destination. The General Settings enables you to change the Process name and select the Fallout destination (e.g. if fallouts will be sent directly to Symphona Resolve or will be processed by a Fallout Process), while the Expected Input Parameters enable you to configure the data available to the Process immediately when execution begins.
Saving Process
Once you’re ready to save your process and publish it for use, click the Deploy button at the top right corner of the view. You can always come back to the Process Editor and make additional changes to your Process.
Fallout Processes
Fallout Processes are Processes that execute when another Process encounters an exceptions to enable automated error triage. We will go over how to create a Fallout Process and assign it to another Process.
Creating Fallout Processes
To create a Fallout Process, create a new Process as described earlier in this article and select “Fallout” as the Process Type.
Assigning Your Fallout Process
To assign a Fallout Process to another Process:
- Open the Process you would like to be triaged by the Fallout Process in the Process Editor.
- Click Settings > General Settings on the right side menu.
- Click the Fallout Destination dropdown menu and select the Fallout Process you wish to trigger when this Process encounters an error.
