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Import Flow

An exported flow can be imported into Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta Enterprise Edition.

  • Dev instance: If you are using an instance of the platform for developing and testing your flows, you can import a new flow through the Flows page.

    Note

    Unless your instance of the platform has been specifically configured to support deployment management, you are using a Dev instance of the platform.

    Note

    If you are attempting to share a flow with other users on the same instance of the platform, you should use the sharing functions. See Overview of Sharing.

  • Prod instance: If you are importing a flow into a Production instance of the platform, you import it as a package through the Deployment Manager.

    Note

    Deployment Manager is a feature that enables segmentation of platform usage between Dev instances and Prod instances. This feature must be enabled and configured. For more information, see Overview of Deployment Manager.

Limitations

Note

You cannot import flows that were exported before Release 6.8.See Changes to the Object Model.

Note

You cannot import flows into a version of the product that is earlier than the one from which you exported it. For example, if you develop a flow on free Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta Educational, which is updated frequently, you may not be able to import it into other editions of the product, which are updated less frequently.

Imported flows do not contain the following objects:

Note

Depending on the import environment, some objects in the flow definition may be incompatible. For example, the connection type may not be valid, or a datasource may not be reachable. In these cases, the objects may be removed from the flow, or you may have to fix a reference in the object definition. After import, you should review the objects in the flow to verify.

  • Reference datasets

    Note

    Reference dataset objects may refer to connections and parameters that are not specifically part of the flow being imported. These references must be remapped in the new project or workspace.

  • Samples

  • Connections

    Tip

    When you import an exported flow, you can perform a remapping of the connections listed in the flow to connections in the new project or workspace. Details are below.

    Note

    If you are importing your flow into Deployment Manager, you must create the connection in the Prod environment and create an import mapping rule to assign the local connection ID to the import package through APIs. For more information, see API Task - Define Deployment Import Mappings.

Imported datasets that are ingested into backend storage for Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta Enterprise Edition may be broken after the flow has been imported into another instance. These datasets must be reconnected to their source. You cannot use import mapping rules to reconnect these data sources. This issue applies to the following data sources:

Before You Begin

Dry-run import

Tip

You can gather some of the following information by performing a dry run of importing the flow. In the Connections Mapping dialog, you can review the objects that need to be mapped and try to identify items that need to be fixed. Make sure you cancel out of the import instead of confirming it.

Define import rules

During import of a package into Deployment Manager, you may need to create import mapping rules to apply to your package. For example, if the Development data is stored in a different location than the Production data, you may need to create import rules to remap paths and connections to use to acquire the data from the Production environment.

Note

Import rules are applied at the time of import. They cannot be retroactively applied to releases that have already been imported.

For more information, see API Task - Define Deployment Import Mappings.

Import

Note

You cannot import into a Dev instance if your account for the instance contains the Deployment role.

Note

If the exported ZIP file contains a single JSON file, you can just import the JSON file. If the export ZIP also contains other artifact files, you must import the whole flow definition as a ZIP file. For best results, import the entire ZIP file.

Import flow ZIP file

Steps:

  1. Export the flow from the source system. See Export Flow.

  2. Login to the import system, if needed.

  3. Click Flows.

  4. From the context menu in the Flow page, select Import Flow.

    Tip

    You can import multiple flows (ZIP files) through the file browser or through drag-and-drop. Press CTRL/COMMAND + click or SHIFT + click to select multiple files for import.

  5. Select the ZIP file containing the exported flow. Click Open.

Flow mappings

When you import a flow into a new project or workspace, you may need to remap the connections and environment parameters to corresponding objects from the import.

These mappings can be performed via API. For more information, see API Task - Define Deployment Import Mappings.

Otherwise, you can fix them manually after import by repairing the broken references that appear in the flow and recipe. See below.

Finishing up

To complete the import process, click Confirm.If there are issues with the import, click the Download link to review the missing or malformed objects.The flow is imported and available for use in the Flows page.

Post-import

  • If you were unable to complete mappings through the dialog:

  • Samples are not included in an exported flow. Samples must be recreated in the new project or workspace. See Samples Panel.

Note

If you have imported a flow from an earlier version of the application, you may receive warnings of schema drift during job execution when there have been no changes to the underlying schema. This is a known issue. The workaround is to create a new version of the underlying imported dataset and use it in the imported flow.

Import into Prod instance

After creating any import rules in your Prod instance, please do the following.

Steps:

  1. Export the flow from the source system. See Export Flow.

  2. Login to the Prod instance. The Deployment Manager is displayed.

  3. Click Deployments.

  4. Select or create the deployment into which to import the package.

  5. Within the deployment, click Import Package.

  6. Select the ZIP file containing the exported flow. Click Open.

    1. Any defined import rules are applied to the package during import.

    2. The package is selected as the active one for the deployment.

    3. If there are issues with the import, click the Download link to review the missing or malformed objects.

Tip

After you import, you should open the flow in Flow View and run a job to verify that the import was successful and the rules were applied. See Flow View Page.

In this section: