Inbound Flow Link Component
The Inbound Flow Link component can be used together with the Outbound Flow Link component to connect flows with each other. This enables you to split up bigger integrations in several reusable flows.
This component is meant to be the first component in a flow, because it acts as a consumer. It consumes messages that are sent by one or more Outbound Flow Link components that are located in other flows.
Configuration
This component has only one configuration option: Transport
Transport
Options
DefaultSynchronousAsynchronousQueues
Description
The transport mechanism used between flow steps (components). Default is the best setting in most cases.
| Transport | Queue | Explanation | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default | Yes | Uses queues between flows | Queues are used by default (see Queues) |
| Synchronous | No | When you configure your flow to be synchronous, the output of the next flow will be used as a response to the first flow. | For synchronous (request/response) interactions. Especially to keep the message order. Note the calling flow must be running. |
| Asynchronous | Yes | When you configure your flow to be asynchronous, messages are stored an in-memory blocking queue between flows. | For asynchronous (fire-and-forget) interactions. Especially to increase performance. Note the calling flow must be running. |
| Queues | Yes | Same as default. All messages will pass through a queuing mechanism. This means that the messages are stored on a broker outside of the flow until the next flow has received and acknowledged it. | For synchronous (request/response) or asynchronous (fire-and-forget) interactions with large messages and guaranteed delivery. Message throughput can be slower. |
Remark
- If you are not familiar with how the different transport types work, we recommend you leave it at Default.
- You can't sent messages to this component with an
Outbound Flow Link component that has a different
Transport. For example: a asynchronous Outbound Flow Link component can't send messages to a synchronous Inbound flow link component.
Connected flows
In the properties modal of this component you can also see all flows that target
it for sending messages. When there are no
Outbound Flow Link components that target it you will see
the following message: There are no connected flows. When there are one or more
Outbound Flow Link components that target this component
then you will see a list of flows in which these are located. You can navigate to
these flows easily by clicking on the name.
Take note that we can only show connected flows that have the connected Outbound Flow Link component in the draft version of the flow. So it can be possible that you don't see a flow in this list while you expect it to be there.
When some flows have a Transport mismatch then they become red and an error message will also be displayed below the list.
Remarks
- To see the full origin/target flow chain in the tracing, all connected flows should have tracing enabled.