In low-code Process development, you utilize pre-defined Element types and connect them with flow connectors to form a Process. Frends offers a vast number of Tasks that you can use in Process development:
Tasks developed and maintained by Frends.
Community Task library containing Tasks developed by Frends user organizations and shared for other Frends users to utilize.
CDATA connector library.
In the image below, you can see an example Process Editor View with an example Process. On the left side of the screen, you can find a Toolbar with different kinds of Element types. In the middle, there is a Canvas where the Process design is done. On the right-hand side, there is a Parameter Editor where you can configure the chosen element. In the example view, the Parameter Editor is presenting Process basic information
In the Process Editor, you basically drag and drop Elements to the Canvas, connect them to each other with Connectors, and configure the behavior of the Element to form the logic for the integration. In low-code Process creation, your role is to configure the Task to operate based on the design. You do not need to focus on collecting needed libraries, designing the code logic, writing the code, planning error handling procedures, or doing debugging for the code needed for the Task. With already available Task libraries that provide you with pre-defined Tasks where all this has been done already, you can focus on what is most important for you and for your business associates requesting the integrations: getting integrations implemented efficiently and fast.
By using Tasks for building integrations by configuring them, we mean, for example:
SQL ExecuteQuery Task: configure the SQL query and connection string to the database.
HTTPRequest Task: configure the HTTP method, endpoint, message body, and header parameters.
SFTP UploadFiles Task: configure source and target locations, and file processing steps.
In addition to configuring Tasks, low-code has a concept called a low-code reference. With a low-code reference, you can, for example, refer back to earlier Task results in the Process and the result properties.
The illustration below is an example of a configuration panel view for HTTPRequest Task. In the example, you can also find the message field where you can find examples of low-code references.
To give an idea:
#trigger.data.productID refers to the input provided by the Manual Trigger of the Process.
#result[ExecuteQuery][0].SafetyStockLevel refers to the result of the Task named ExecuteQuery that has been executed before this HTTPRequest Task. The result is an array, and the JSON message example uses the first Element and the property SafetyStockLevel of that Element.
You can find more information about the HTTPRequest Task from Frends' GitHub.
You will learn more details about how to use and configure Tasks, and how to use low-code references to implement integrations from the other courses of Frends Academy.
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