1.
Flow System Overview
The Challenge
Leverage the many sources of data available (internally and externally) to gain significant
competitive advantages over your competitors.
The Solution
Flow is​ an integrated end to end cloud based process automation and business intelligence
solution ​developed by 4D­IQ, LLC. Its architecture enables companies to create and deliver
highly custom solutions which can synchronize disconnected systems to automate the
aggregation, transformation and delivery of data across the enterprise. These solutions, called
Flows are designed using the Flow tool. A data analyst and/or business analyst can build and
deploy flows with less than one day of training.
In­Memory Generic Data
At the core of Flow is an in­memory engine built on 4D­IQ’s generic data. Flow acts as a
universal container that adapts to data from any source whether it resides in a file format,
database, web based source, CRM/ERP system or social media. Data imported into Flow is
converted into a native generic data format which removes any associated structure or schema.
In this unstructured state, data from different systems can interact as if they were from the same
source. This allows Flow to overcome the limitations of schema bound data, and opens the door
for an entirely new way of bringing together disparate information. This generic data is persisted
and processed in Flow’s virtual memory. It can be serialized and sent over the network to allow
seamless transfer of the information. When generic data needs to be delivered to a destination
source, the unstructured data is restructured into the format required by that end source. This
allows Flow to transfer information across systems that are normally incompatible.
Environment
Flow provides its own internal development environment for building solutions called the
workflow editor. These workflows are built around 4D­IQ’s trademarked Configure Not Code™
technology. Configure Not Code aims to encapsulate the design flexibility of a standard
programming language through a configurable interface rather than having to write lines of
code. This model provides for a level of abstraction and flexibility in custom solutions to
accommodate an organization’s specific requirements.

2.
Flow System Overview
A Flow is designed within this development environment by building out a sequence of
interrelated, configurable steps. Each step carries some small piece of logic or function to
interact with the data. Examples of the logic these workflow employ include: importing data from
specific sources, organizing, profiling or enriching data, performing specialized calculations to
produce additional data, executing external programs, evaluating conditions within the data, and
delivering data to an end source. A solution is built by assembling these workflow steps in such
a way that when their functions are executed sequentially it produces a desired outcome.
The scope of what can be achieved by these workflows is virtually limitless. The workflows
provide for a high level of customization, allowing them to be molded specifically to a business’s
internal processes. This solution overcomes the challenges of custom code.
Flows can be executed behind the firewall, in the cloud or in combination.
What Differentiates Flow
1. The Flow framework provides for the rapid development and deployment of solutions
that lead to a dramatic increase in internal efficiency and performance.
2. The generic data engine is a unique and powerful approach, overcoming the limitations
of integrating disparate, distributed data.
3. Manual interactions with data in an organization are replicated and automated through a
Flow workflow. Flow is a lightweight link bringing systems together and synchronizing the
flow of data across the enterprise.
4. The simplicity of the Configure Not Code architecture allows solutions to the most
intensive data challenges to be developed in days not weeks.
5. The Flow engine has the ability to create in memory analysis cubes, enabling information
to be aggregated into different dimensions for complex analysis. Workflows can
automatically build these cubes, process and calculate metric and key performance
indicators, and deliver the results in a visual easy to navigate dashboard.
6. A solution delivered using Flow’s development environment allows an organization to
access workflows through the web portal, and trace through all of the logic used to
deliver the solution without the need to understand code.
7. Developed workflows are dynamic. Connecting to new systems, adding new tasks, and
calculating new metrics is simply a matter of adding the required steps to the workflow.
This allows Flow to scale very quickly with an organization.
Flow ​https://flow­app.com