InboundFlowLink Component
The InboundFlowLink component can be used together with the OutboundFlowLink component to connect flows to each other. This enables you to split up bigger integrations in several reusable flows.
This component is meant to be the first component in a flow, because it acts as a consumer. It consumes messages that are sent by one or more OutboundFlowLink components that are located in other flows.
Configuration
This component has the following configuration options:
Transport
The transport mechanism used between the FlowLink components. If you are not familiar with how the different transport types work, we recommend you leave it at Default.
Options
SynchronousAsynchronousQueues(default)
You can't sent messages to this component with an OutboundFlowLink component that has a different Transport setting. For instance: an asynchronous OutboundFlowLink component can't send messages to a synchronous InboundFlowLink component.
| Transport | Queue | Explanation | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Synchronous | No | When you configure your flow to be synchronous, the output of the next flow will be used as a response to the first flow. | For synchronous (request/response) interactions. Especially to keep the message order. Note the calling flow must be running. |
| Asynchronous | Yes | When you configure your flow to be asynchronous, messages are stored an in-memory blocking queue between flows. | For asynchronous (fire-and-forget) interactions. Especially to increase performance. Note the calling flow must be running. |
| Queues | Yes | The default setting. All messages will pass through a queuing mechanism. This means that the messages are stored on a broker outside of the flow until the next flow has received and acknowledged it. | For synchronous (request/response) or asynchronous (fire-and-forget) interactions with large messages and guaranteed delivery. Message throughput can be slower. |
When Transport is set to Queues, messages on the broker have an expiration time of 24 hours. If you uninstall the flow with the InboundFlowLink while the OutboundFLowLink is still sending messages, those messages will be removed from the queue 24 hours after their arrival.
Connected flows
OutboundFlowLink components targeting this InboundFlowLink component are listed here. You can easily navigate to these flows by clicking on their name. If there are no OutboundFlowLink components connected it will say a 'There are no connected flows'.
Take note that we can only show connected flows that have the connected OutboundFlowLink component in the draft version of the flow. So it can be possible that you don't see a flow in this list while you expect it to be there.
When some flows have a Transport mismatch then they become red and an error message will also be displayed below the list.
To see the full origin/target flow chain in the tracing, all connected flows should have tracing enabled.