Building Your First Data Flow

This article will provide you the example data flow used within the getting started video on the Data3Sixty Analyze YouTube channel.  It will also walk you through the process of getting it setup on your local computer.  Some of the key concepts you'll see within this video 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 data flows and library nodes" within the "Sharing Data Flows and Library Nodes" 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.
   e.g. C:\Users\jbelliveau\Demos\DV Getting Started

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.