Building Your First Data Flow

This article will provide you an example data flow.  It will also walk you through the process of getting it setup on your local computer.  Some of the key concepts that are implemented in this data flow include:

• Acquiring data from a directory
• Acquiring data from delimited files
• Acquiring data from a database (MS Access)
• Joining data from disparate locations
• Transforming data
• How Composites are used
• Custom data flow properties
• Publishing the final output.

Importing the Data Flow

First, you’ll need to download the example data flow.  The latter link contains the example data flow, along with all the necessary data files to run it.  The example data flow is located within the LNA folder.

Import the data flow by following the instructions in the section titled "Importing and exporting data flows and library nodes" within the "Getting started" help section.

Setting the Properties

Before you get started, you will need to change the “projectDirectory” property to point to the project folder on your computer. 

1. Open the Getting Started data flow.
2. Look into the properties panel, located to the right side of the data flow canvas.
3. Click into the textbox for the “projectDirectory” property and change it to be the folder to which you extracted the files.

Running the Data Flow

There are multiple ways to run a data flow.  The method will make use of the collapsed menu panel.

1. Click the menu button to view the full list of options
2. Choose the “Select All” item

3. Once the nodes are all selected, run the data flow. If you have previously run the nodes, use the rerun button instead.

Congratulations.  You’ve just walked through building your first data flow!  

For a more in-depth walk-through, please visit the Example Data Flows page or follow the "Building your first Dataflow" tutorial, located within the help documentation.