Essentials of Automations: The Art of Triggers and Actions in FME

In this second installment of our Essentials of Automations webinar series, we’ll explore the landscape of triggers and actions, guiding you through the nuances of authoring and adapting workspaces for seamless automations. Gain an understanding of the full spectrum of triggers and actions available in FME, empowering you to enhance your workspaces for efficient automation.

We’ll kick things off by showcasing the most commonly used event-based triggers, introducing you to various automation workflows like manual triggers, schedules, directory watchers, and more. Plus, see how these elements play out in real scenarios.

Whether you’re tweaking your current setup or building from the ground up, this session will arm you with the tools and insights needed to transform your FME usage into a powerhouse of productivity. Join us to discover effective strategies that simplify complex processes, enhancing your productivity and transforming your data management practices with FME. Let’s turn complexity into clarity and make your workspaces work wonders!

1. Essentials of Automations:
The Art of Triggers and
Actions in FME

2. Kezia
Yu

Technical Support Specialist,
FME Flow
Bailey
Knapp

Technical Support Specialist,
FME Flow

3. Welcome to Livestorm.
A few ways to engage with us during the webinar:


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troubleshooting steps.

4. What is your experience
with FME Flow?

5. Agenda
1What are Automations
2Understanding Triggers and Actions in FME
3Adapting Existing Workspaces for Enhanced
Automation
4Transitioning to Automations from
FMEFlowJobSubmitter
5Next Steps & Resources
6Q&A
Agenda

6. 1
What are
Automations?

7. Streamline your data workflows &
ensure efficient, real-time data across
various systems and platforms with
FME Flow Automations.

8. Triggers & Actions in Automation enable:
●Increased Efficiency
●Improved Accuracy
●Greater Control
●Scalability
The Importance of Triggers &
Actions in Automation
FME Flow 2024.1

9. Common Challenges with Triggers & Actions
●Resources: Lack of time or manpower to explore and implement advanced features.
●Knowledge Gaps: Insufficient training or expertise in maximizing the potential of FME for
specific use cases.
●Suboptimal Workflows: Existing processes are not fully optimized, leading to
inefficiencies and potential data issues.

10. Transform your FME
workspaces into powerhouses
of productivity with the art of
triggers and actions!

11. Automation Webinar
Series
●May 29: Optimizing FME
Workflows with Parameters
●Today! The Art of Triggers and
Actions in FME
●June 19: Exploring Attributes &
Automation Parameters

12. One platform, two technologies
FME Form FME Flow
Build and run data workflows Automate data workflows

FME Flow Hosted
Safe Software managed instance
fme.safe.com/platform
FME Enterprise Integration Platform
Safe & FME

13. 2
Understanding
Triggers and
Actions in FME

14. Triggers
Listen for and receive messages from external clients
or from within FME Flow

15. FTPS and FTPES
Dropbox
Manual Trigger
Azure Event
Grid
JMS
UDP
HTTP Request WebSocket
FTP
System Event
SQS/SNS
SMTP
and
IMAP
SQS/SNS
Topic
Schedule
S3 Bucket
Resource
or Network
Directory
Triggers
Webhook

16. Complete workflow tasks at
specific times in the future


Monitors activity on a
Resources folder or other
location, and sends
messages about that activity


Receives JSON and other
data in the body of an HTTP
request message

Common Triggers
Schedule Directory Watch Webhooks
Check out our webinar Event to Action: Accelerate Your Decision
Making with Real-Time Automation for more!
●Automated data
synchronization
●Periodic report
generation
●Automatic data updates
from watched folders



●Updating data from
survey submissions
●IoT sensor response to
create an alert

17. Internal Actions
Process messages between triggers and external
actions, either in an FME workspace, or through
another tool

18. Run a Workspace
Merge Messages
Run a Dynamic
Workspace
Log a Message
Filter Messages
Internal Actions

19. External Actions
Send messages to external clients or inside FME Flow

20. Notifications
●Sends out messages containing key
information from previous actions in the
automation
●Can include information on the data
processed or job completion status
●Some allow attachments
Types of External Actions
File Upload
●Receives messages from previous
automation actions and sends out files to
external applications
●Able to define file path and name that is
uploaded

21. Dropbox
Azure Event
Grid
JMS
HTTP Request
WebSocket
FTP
SMTP SQS/SNS
Topic
S3 Bucket
External Actions
SFTP

22. ●Make data accessible by delivering data and analytics
insights to clients’ preferred cloud data storage
locations
●Send alerts on job completion status that data upload
processes are halted if validation is failed
●When a citizen submits an application online, the data
is processed and a summary email with relevant files
is automatically sent out

Applications of External Actions
Common External Actions

23. Slide Title
Automatically
extract and
process data

Goal Block Key
Directory Watch Notification
Result
Manual effort to
extract specific
information and
send email

Leverage
Resource
Directory Watch
trigger and Email
external action

Data is
automatically
extracted,
processed, and
email sent

24. Demo

25. ●Taking workflows to the next level is easy
with automations click and drop interface
●Automations offer a wide variety of
triggers and actions to suit most needs
●Even simple automations save
organizations valuable time and effort


Key Takeaways
Directory Watch Notification Demo

26. 3
Adapting Existing
Workspaces for
Enhanced
Automation

27. Adapting Existing Workspaces
with Automations Writer

28. Messages & data are passed between Automation components
●Key-Value pairs hold
information about an event
or a user-defined value.
●Parameters can intake
attributes, allowing for
Actions to be run with
upstream values.
●Automation attributes are
based on JSON formatting

29. Webinar: Essentials of Automations:
Exploring Attributes & Automation
Parameters
Parameters and attributes are
available for each trigger
and action
Ex: User Parameters created in FME
Workbench become Parameters inside
the “Run a Workspace” Action.
Start drawing connections between ports
to use incoming attributes inside an
actionʼs parameters

30. Routing Data between Workspaces
●Implement enterprise integration patterns
●Send data from within a workspace to other Automation Actions
●Build workspaces to run data-driven parallel processing
●Merge data from other systems

31. Slide Title
Enrich data that is
sent to other
systems in the
middle of an
automation

Goal Block Key
Downstream Processing
Result
Data is inside
FME Workspace

Use FMEFlow
Automations
Writer

This enables data
to be passed both
into and out of
workspaces that
are in
Automations.

32. Demo

33. ●Automation attributes can pass
messages and data between automation
components
●Automations writer can be used to create
output ports to the workspace action
nodes and bring data out for further
downstream processing


Key Takeaways

34. 4
Transitioning to
Automations from
FMEFlowJobSubmitter
Workflows

35. How often do you use
FMEFlowJobSubmitter
in your workflows?

36. Job Chaining & Downstream Processing


FMEFlowJobSubmitter FME Flow Automations
●More Complex: configuring &
maintenance
●Results in workflows that
have more moving pieces
and seperate

●Easy to use: build, scale,
troubleshoot .
●Have workflow in one visual
view/interface
●Easy to share and document

37. Slide Title
Splitting out
Actions in
Automations

Goal Block Key
Enhance Workflow with Automations
Result
Using FME Flow
Transformers

Automations Job
Chaining

Workflow that is
easy to build,
maintain, and
scale

38. Demo

39. ●Split jobs and pass data between actions
using Automations writer.
●Build out Automations by chaining jobs in
sequence or in parallel, replacing the
FMEFlowJobSubmitter.


Key Takeaways

40. FME Flow Transformers
●Deprecation in 2024.1
○FMEFlowResourceConnector
○FMEFlowLogFileRetriever
○FMEFlowJobWaiter
●Alternatives:
○FME Flow Rest API V4
○FME Flow Automations

41. Chat Storm:
Which triggers or actions
are you most likely to
use?

42. Achieve
efficient, scalable,
automated
workflows with
FME Flow

43. 5
Resources

44. Resources to Get Started
●Routing Data Between Workspaces in
Automations
●Dynamic workspace Chaining in FME
Flow Automations

45. Get our Ebook
Spatial Data for the
Enterprise

fme.ly/gzc


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46. Check out
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featuring special guest
speakers over at EM360

Resources

47. 6
Next Steps

48. We’d love to help you get
started.
Get in touch with us at
[email protected]
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Next Steps

50. 7
Q&A

51. Thank You
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