Data Integration In Flows

Intelligent Advisor Flows was only made available to select customers, and will not be made Generally Available.

While an interview flow that simply collects some information and infers values based on the answers provides can be sufficient for a wide range of use cases such as calculators and advice tools, there are a number of scenarios where the flow needs to send data to or get data from third party systems. In such cases, the data integration feature of the Flow Engine API, which provides a managed interface for either importing or exporting data from a flow, can be used.

Example use cases include:

• Loading and saving records

• Dynamic value lists

• Complex calculations that aren't implemented in rules

• Invoking remote decision services

• Providing local context (for example, details of the currently logged in user)

• Required flow outcomes

There are currently two mechanisms that provide data integration in flows:

• Data actions

• The global input schema

Both are configured very similarly and there are use cases where the two can collaborate.

It is the responsibility of the implementing application to determine when and how data is sent and returned to a given data action or the global input data. Returned data for a global input data or any data action can be set or changed by the calling application at any time of its choosing.