Flow (automation)

Introduction

The Flow module assists you on automating workflow tasks related to content. It does so by allowing you to setup tasks, that are being automatically applied when content is about to be created, saved or deleted.

This module works on top of your data in the system: Every task and subject always relates to a concrete data type, that is being defined by the entity type and a bundle (for example node type "article").

Out of the box you can:

• Merge and prepopulate field values (with Token support)
• Create further content (such as taxonomy terms, nodes, comments etc.)
• Relate content with each other (including back-references)
• Send a mail or display a message (when using Actions for Flow sub-module)
• Create custom flow with qualifiers (e.g. when an article got published).

You can extend this by either writing your own task plugins, or installing further modules.
You can decide whether your task is to be executed immediately or to be run in the background queue. Flow automatically enqueues your task for continuation when it's operating on a large number of subjects.

Complementary projects

This module contains additional sub-modules, all optional:
Flow UI: A user interface for Flow. You most likely want to install this module to setup Flow configurations through the web user interface.
Actions for Flow: Makes actions available for Flow configurations.
Flow Context: Makes Flow-related content available as contextual Tokens. Requires the Context Stack module (composer require drupal/context_stack:^1.0).

When the Select2 module is installed, the user interface uses that widget to improve selection on the vast number of available tasks and subjects.

When working with Tokens, the contrib Token module is recommended to be installed. That module provides a Token browser for a convenient way to browse through available Tokens.

If you need conditions and loops when working with Tokens, have a look at Mustache Templates.

Event Records may help you to build up even more advanced use cases with Flow.

The role of Flow in the ecosystem of Rules and automation

This module is a tool for workflow automation, by configuring tasks that are to be executed automatically on content operations. Its intent is to provide a simple interface for setting up such actions, without the need of a knowledge of programming or Drupal's application logic.

There might be use cases for automation, that go beyond the scope of content operations, and exceed the level of complexity this module would be able to cover.

Examples that go beyond the capabilities of this workflow automation tool:

• Process logic that should apply on a more generic level other than on concrete data, i.e. when you need a higher level of abstraction.
• A conditional chain of actions to execute.
• Creating data whose structure is to be (dynamically) defined on runtime.
• Reacting on events other than entity-related operations.
• Granular control level structures similar to a programming language.

For such use cases, you might need the scale of a rule-based engine. Example modules:

• Rules
• ECA: Event - Condition - Action
• Business Rules