Designing on the UI

The Graphical Designer interface is composed of two main elements:

Palette
Workspace

Palette

In the palette you can find everything you need to create and deploy functioning workflows. The palette is divided in two tabs:

Blocks

The Blocks tab houses workflows, tasks, wait tasks, and join conditions. Workflows can be dragged and dropped in the workspace, while other items can only be dropped inside workflows.

In this tab you can also find all the available task types divided in categories. You can add any number of tasks to workflows.

The Most used section displays the most frequently used items that have been already defined.

Assets

In this tab you can specify item definitions, add defined items to a workflow, or edit definitions saved in the database. You can define new assets by selecting Add new and choosing an asset type from the drop-down menu.

The items you can find in the Assets tab are:

Calendar
Credentials
Event source
Folder
Task template
Variable table
Workstation

You can use the search bar to find and reuse previously defined assets in your current workspace.

Note: When adding blocks and assets to the workspace, you can specify their properties in their contextual properties panel.

Workspace

The workspace is the canvas on which you can place, design and connect your workflows.

Navigation: The workspace offers a flexible navigation system. You can pan freely across the canvas, zoom in and out, and use the fit-to-screen feature to adjust the view to see all your blocks and assets at the same time. A mini-map provides an overview of the entire workspace, highlighting the current visible area.

Controlling tasks and workflows processing

To control the processing of tasks and workflows in your environment, you can add triggers, dependencies, wait tasks, and join dependencies.

Triggers

You can associate the following types of triggers to a workflows:

Service
Run cycle
Excluding run cycle
Event trigger

To add a trigger to your workflow, click the Add triggers button in the workflow box in the workspace, then click Add new and select the trigger from the drop-down menu. Then, specify the required information in the property panel. For more information about triggers, see Triggers.

Dependencies

You can create internal or external dependencies between workflows or tasks in your workspace.

Workflows and tasks are represented visually as rectangular blocks in the workspace, each featuring four connection points. To establish dependencies between these blocks, drag connecting arrows from one block's connection point to another. Arrows are visually represented differently depending on whether the dependency is internal or external:

Internal dependencies are represented by a single arrowhead
External dependencies are represented by a double arrowhead

When you create an internal dependency, a panel where you can specify dependency information appears, and you can eventually change the dependency type from internal to external.

Wait tasks: From the Blocks tab, you can drag a wait task and drop it into a workflow. Then, you can establish dependencies by dragging connecting arrows from the connection points of the wait task block to other tasks or workflow blocks' connection points, or vice versa. As the name suggests, a wait task establishes a time to wait before the successor can start. As for other task types, you can specify the duration and other information regarding the wait task in the properties panel.

Join conditions

To establish a set of dependencies between workflows or tasks, you can define a join condition. This condition specifies that a workflow or task must wait for the join condition to be met before it can start running. The join condition is satisfied only when one or more dependencies have been satisfied.

You can drag a join condition from the Blocks tab and drop it in a workflow or in a task. Then, connect the join condition block to the items that must be part of that join condition. In the properties panel, specify a name for the join condition and optionally define the minimum number of predecessor dependencies required to satisfy it. If you do not specify a value, all predecessor dependencies must be satisfied.

For more information about dependencies, seeDependencies.

Generative workflows

You can use the generative AI features of the Graphical Designer by clicking on the wand icon of the UnO AI Pilot located on the bottom-left of the page. To create custom workflows, describe your needs in a prompt, which is converted in three workflow options for you to choose from. You can edit one of the options or add it directly in your workspace.

You can only create one workflow at a time. To generate another workflow, close and reopen the UnO AI Pilot to start prompting again.

Note: To protect your privacy and security, do not share any personal information or sensitive data in the conversation with UnO AI Pilot. The information that UnO AI Pilot shares might be inaccurate, so you should always check its responses.

Saving and exporting: The items you defined in a workspace can be saved to the database by selecting Deploy.
Note: After the successful deployment of a workspace, you are prompted to decide whether you want to delete it or not. Deleting a deployed workspace clears the canvas, and all the items previously defined in the workspace are safely saved to the database and can be used in future workspaces.; You can export workspaces as JSON files or upload previously exported workspaces to keep working on them. You can also save the workspace visuals as Portable Network Graphics (PNG) files.

Note: If you close the Graphical Designer page before deploying a workspace, you can continue to edit your workflows when you log in again, but changes are not saved in the database until you complete the deployment.