Using a Subflow in the Middle of a Flow

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.

  1. In Spectrum Enterprise Designer, click File > New > Dataflow > Subflow.
  2. Drag an Input stage from the palette to the canvas.

    This allows data from the parent flow to be sent into the subflow.

  3. Double-click the Input stage and add the fields that the subflow will receive from the flow in which it is used.
  4. After configuring the Input stage, add additional stages as needed to perform the processing that you want.
  5. 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:

  6. Select File > Save and save the subflow.
  7. Select File > Expose to make the subflow available to include in flows.
  8. In the flow where you want to include the subflow, drag the subflow from the palette to the canvas.
  9. 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: