Mediaflows user guide

To start using MediaFlows you need:

• An active Cloudinary account. If you don’t have one, sign up here for free.
• Master admin permissions to your account.

Create a MediaFlows account

Sign up to MediaFlows using your Gmail or GitHub account. Make sure you read and understand the MediaFlows Private Beta legal disclaimer.

Account settings

You can access the account settings by clicking your Profile image at the top right of the screen, then clicking Settings.

In your account settings, you can delete your account. Deletion is final once approved.

If for any reason you want to delete your MediaFlows account, we welcome your feedback so we'll be able to improve MediaFlows.

Create a new project

Once signed in, you can create a new project. A project is a space where you can host multiple flows. Each project is connected to a specific Cloudinary product environment. The flows hosted in a project can interact only with the product environment linked to their hosting project. You can create multiple projects and connect them to different product environments.

To create a new project:

1. From the MediaFlows home page, click the Create new project button.
2. Provide a name for the project.
3. Click Connect with Cloudinary to be transferred to Cloudinary's login page.
4. On the OAuth Application Login Page, sign in to Cloudinary using your Gmail or GitHub account and click Log in.
5. On the An application requests access to your data page, choose the product environment you want to link with this project and click Accept Access.
6. Back on the Projects page, click Create Project.

Project settings

From within a project, you can access the project settings by clicking Project Settings at the top right of the screen.

The settings page allows you to:

• Change the project name
• Delete the project
• Reconnect a product environment
• Set environment variables that can later be accessed in all flows hosted in the project.

Create a new flow

Now that you have created a project, you can proceed to create a new flow.

1. Inside the project page, click Create a new flow.
2. In the new flow page, click Start from scratch.

Feel free to explore the out-of-the-box templates. Use these templates as inspiration and see what use cases MediaFlows can help you solve. Use any of these templates and customize them to your organization's needs.

Working with blocks

Flows are composed of a set of functional blocks that you connect together, creating step-by-step actions to execute. Each block performs a specific function. Connect different blocks to create an application that solves your media use case. Blocks are grouped into different categories such as Triggers, Flow Logic, and Developer Tools, to make them more accessible. For details of each block, see the Block reference.

Toolbox

Drag blocks from the toolbox on the left and drop them onto your canvas.

Connecting blocks

Drag the blue and red dots to connect blocks.

• Use the blue dots to connect the next block in the happy path.
• Use the red dots to connect the next block in the error path.

In the example below, if the Upload Media block executes successfully, the Rename Asset block will be executed next. If the Upload Media block experiences any issues, the Send HTTP Request block will be executed next to send the error to a specific destination.

A block can be connected to multiple blocks. In the example below, once the Upload Media block executes successfully, both the Rename Asset and Send Email using SendGrid blocks are executed in parallel.

Unsupported flow connections

Some flow connections are currently not supported. Unsupported flows cannot be saved or executed.

A block input cannot be connected to two different outputs.

A flow cannot have two triggers.

Parallel blocks cannot start after any Trigger or Flow Logic block.

Block fields

Click the block name to open its settings page. On this page, you can configure all the input fields for this block instance.

To make your flows easier to understand, you can change the display name of a block to give more insight into what it is being used for.

Dynamic parameters

An input field can be set using a hard-coded value or an output value of a previous block in the flow.

In the example below, the New Asset Public ID and Asset Type fields are hard coded while the Current Asset Public ID is dynamically taken from the output of the previous block.

To view the list of available dynamic parameters, click the {} button in the lower left corner and search for the block or parameter you want to use. Once you click the parameter name, it will be copied to your clipboard. Paste the copied string to the input field where you want to use this parameter.

Share a flow

You can share flows between different users and projects. Share a flow and import it to another project in your account if you want to connect it to a different product environment. Share a flow with a colleague to allow them to reuse or extend your application in their own account. Changes made to the imported flow do not impact the originally shared flow.

To share a flow, click Share in the kebab menu.

The shareable URL is copied to your clipboard, ready for you to send to a colleague.

Import a flow

To import a flow, enter the shared URL in your browser, select the project in which you want to import this flow to, and click the Try This Flow button.