Review Typical Concepts

This topic considers OL Connect Workflow concepts and how they can be achieved in OL Connect Automate.

Workflow Concept	Automate Resolution	Additional Information
Subprocess Subprocesses are special processes that can be called by any other process. Subprocesses act exactly as subroutines in programming languages, allowing users to reuse existing processes by sharing them to the whole configuration file.	subflows or link node	Primary uses cases: reuse or visually group logic. Subflows primary use case is code reuse. Use the Link node to visually group logic on the flow tab (pros: have all logic in one view, easier to debug). You can also link between flow tabs using Link Call nodes, which integrate seamlessly and are generally more efficient than subflows for organizing simple or localized logic.
Creating endpoints/accepting HTTP requests (NodeJS Server Input or Client Input)	http in node	Supports standard HTTP methods. Allows both URL and Query parameters.
Text condition branching Text Condition tasks is typically used to compare two strings.	switch node	Example: write doc type A to folder A, write doc type B to folder B else write to folder C.
Dynamic resource names (template, datamapper, and preset names)	change node or function node	Set the respective `msg` property (see the documentation of the respective nodes).
Merge PDF The Merge PDF Files Input task (formerly named "Concatenate PDF Files") captures all PDF files in a given folder and merges them into a single PDF file.	function node + pdf-merger-js module	Use a function node and the pdf-merger-js. module. This method may come in handy when merging a banner page with OL Connect generated content.
System variables System variables are standard variables, created and managed directly by OL Connect Workflow. These variables are read-only and cannot be modified. They provide information about the job, process, and OL Connect Workflow environment.	JSONata in change or inject nodes function node	There is no direct equivalent of the System Variables as seen in OL Connect Workflow, but there are various ways to create similar values using the JSONata expression language and the powerful function node (for example, to generate uuids). For more information, see System Variables.
Data Repository The Data Repository is a permanent structure to store data that can then be reused, modified or augmented at a later time, by different processes.	Use an external database.	In many OL Connect AutomateAutomate projects, it’s useful to persist information outside of the running flows, especially when data needs to be shared between flows, reused later, or presented in a Dashboard. While OL Connect Workflow provided a built-in Data Repository, in OL Connect Automate this functionality can be implemented more flexibly, using a standard database. See Use External Databases for more information.
Scheduling processes The Workflow scheduling settings let users control when processes run by specific times, days, or months.	inject + function node	The inject node allows a flow to be triggered at defined intervals, for example, every 15 minutes, once every 24 hours, or between specific times on selected days. This configuration covers most common scheduling scenarios. In OL Connect Workflow, additional scheduling options are available, such as running a process during the first week of the month. While the inject node does not include this functionality by default, it can be implemented by adding a function node. Read the Advanced flow scheduling topic.
NodeJS Server input Direct response	read file or template node
PDF Splitting Splitting PDF data into multiple files is a common technique used to separate documents and then process each one individually.	Use the document boundary options in data mapping configurations in OL Connect	OL Connect Automate use the document splitting capabilities of OL Connect Server. This is handled through the boundaries settings of a data mapping configuration. This configuration can be used in the Data Mapping or Document Mapping nodes. For more information read the Split PDF documents using OL Connect article. This technique can be applied to other incoming print-ready streams.