You can use a subflow in the middle of a flow to perform processing that you want to make reusable in other flows. In effect, the subflow becomes a custom stage in your flow.
- In Spectrum Enterprise Designer, click File > New > Dataflow > Subflow.
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Drag an Input stage from the palette to the canvas.
This allows data from the parent flow to be sent into the subflow.
- Double-click the Input stage and add the fields that the subflow will receive from the flow in which it is used.
- After configuring the Input stage, add additional stages as needed to perform the processing that you want.
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At the end of the flow, add an Output stage.
This allows the data from the subflow to be sent to the parent flow.
For example, you might want to create a subflow that performs deduplication using certain settings in each stage so that you can use the same deduplication process in multiple flows. To do this you could create a subflow like this:
- Select File > Save and save the subflow.
- Select File > Expose to make the subflow available to include in flows.
- In the flow where you want to include the subflow, drag the subflow from the palette to the canvas.
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Connect the subflow to the flow stage you want.
For example, you could use the deduplication subflow within a flow that performs geocoding so that the data is deduplicated before the geocoding operation: