Send data to user interface

Why is it useful? It provides real-time updates and communication between the process and the frontend application.

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Configuring a Send data to user interface action

Multiple options are available for this type of action and can be configured via the FlowX Designer. To configure a Send data to user interface, use the Actions tab at the task node level, which has the following configuration options:

• Action Edit
• Back in steps (for Manual actions)
• Parameters
• Data to send (for Manual actions)

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Action Edit

• Name - used internally to make a distinction between different actions on nodes in the process. We recommend defining an action naming standard to be able to quickly find the process actions
• Order - if multiple actions are defined on the same node, the running order should be set using this option
• Timer expression - it can be used if a delay is required on that action. The format used for this is ISO 8601 duration format (for example, a delay of 30 seconds will be set up as PT30S)
• Action type - should be set to Send data to user interface
• Trigger type (options are Automatic/Manual) - choose if this action should be triggered automatically (when the process flow reaches this step) or manually (triggered by the user); in most use cases, this will be set to automatic
• Required type (options are Mandatory/Optional) - automatic actions can only be defined as mandatory. Manual actions can be defined as mandatory or optional.
• Repeatable - should be checked if the action can be triggered multiple times
• Autorun Children - when this is switched on, the child actions (the ones defined as mandatory and automatic) will run immediately after the execution of the parent action is finalized

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Back in steps

• Allow BACK on this action - back in process is a functionality that allows you to go back in a business process and redo a series of previous actions in the process. For more details, check Moving a token backwards in a process section.

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Parameters

The following fields are required for a minimum configuration of this type of action:

• Message Type - if you only want to send data, you can set this to Default (it defaults to the data message type)

{
  "processName": "demoProcess",
  "type": "START_PROCESS_INHERIT",
  "clientDataKeys":["webAppKeys"],
  "params": {
     "startCondition": "${startCondition}",
     "paramsToCopy": []
     }
}

• Message - here you define the data to be sent as a JSON object, you can use constant values and values from the process instance data.
• Target Process - is used to specify to what running process instance should this message be sent - Active process or Parent process

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Data to send

• Keys - are used when data is sent from the frontend via an action to validate the data (you can find more information in the User task configuration section)

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Send update data example

To send the latest value from the process instance data found at application.client.firstName key, to the frontend app, you can do the following:

1. Add a Send data to user interface.
2. Set the Message Type to Default (this is default value for data).
3. Add a Message with the data you want to send:
   • { "name": "${application.client.firstName}" }
4. Choose the Target Process.