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Visual Builder

The Visual Builder provides a drag-and-drop interface for designing orchestrations. Instead of configuring steps through forms or JSON, you can visually arrange steps, draw connections between them, and see the flow of your orchestration at a glance.

Overview

The Visual Builder displays your orchestration as a flowchart. Each step is a node on the canvas, and connections between steps are drawn as arrows showing the data flow.

The interface has three main areas:

Area Location Purpose
Canvas Centre The main workspace where you arrange steps
Step Palette Left panel Drag step types from here onto the canvas
Step Detail Right panel Configure the selected step's properties

The Canvas

The canvas is an infinite scrollable workspace. You can:

  • Pan: Click and drag on empty space to move around the canvas
  • Zoom: Use the scroll wheel or the zoom controls in the toolbar to zoom in and out
  • Select: Click a step to select it and open its detail panel
  • Multi-select: Hold Shift and click multiple steps, or drag a selection box
  • Delete: Select a step and press Delete, or right-click and choose Remove

Toolbar

The canvas toolbar provides:

Button Action
Zoom In / Out Adjust the zoom level
Fit to Screen Zoom to fit all steps on the visible canvas
Undo / Redo Undo or redo the last action
Auto Layout Automatically arrange steps in a clean top-to-bottom layout
Save Save the current state of the orchestration
Test Run Execute the orchestration with test data

Adding Steps

From the Palette

  1. Open the Step Palette on the left
  2. Find the step type you want:
    • API Call -- call a connected system
    • Transform -- reshape data
    • Conditional -- branch based on a condition
    • Error Handler -- handle failures
  3. Drag the step type onto the canvas
  4. Drop it where you want it in the flow

From the Context Menu

  1. Right-click on empty space on the canvas
  2. Select Add Step
  3. Choose the step type
  4. The step is placed at the click location

Connecting Steps

Steps are connected by drawing arrows from one step's output port to the next step's input port.

Drawing a Connection

  1. Hover over a step to reveal its output port (small circle at the bottom)
  2. Click and drag from the output port
  3. Drop onto another step's input port (small circle at the top)
  4. An arrow appears connecting the two steps

Connection Rules

  • A step can have multiple outgoing connections (for conditional branching)
  • A step can have multiple incoming connections (for merging paths)
  • Connections flow top-to-bottom by convention (but this is not enforced)
  • You cannot create circular connections (cycles) -- the orchestration must be a directed acyclic graph

Removing a Connection

  1. Click on the connection arrow to select it
  2. Press Delete, or right-click and choose Remove Connection

The Step Detail Panel

When you select a step on the canvas, the detail panel opens on the right side. This is where you configure the step's properties.

API Call Step Detail

Section Fields
Basic Step name, description
Connection Select the connected system
Operation Select the API operation to call
Parameters Configure input parameters (with autocomplete for ${...} references)
Error Handling On Error action, retry settings

Transform Step Detail

Section Fields
Basic Step name, description
Transform Type Map, Filter, Merge, Extract, or Aggregate
Mapping JSON editor for the transformation definition
Preview Shows a preview of the transform output based on sample data

Conditional Step Detail

Section Fields
Basic Step name, description
Condition The boolean expression to evaluate
Then Which connected step to execute if true
Else Which connected step to execute if false

Error Handler Step Detail

Section Fields
Basic Step name, description
Applies To Which step(s) this handler covers
Action Retry, Skip, Abort, or Fallback
Retry Settings Count, delay, backoff
Fallback Step Step to execute on all retries exhausted

Working with the Visual Builder

Rearranging Steps

Drag steps to reorder them on the canvas. The execution order is determined by the connections (arrows), not by the visual position -- but keeping the visual layout consistent with the execution order makes the orchestration easier to understand.

Auto Layout

After rearranging steps, click Auto Layout in the toolbar to automatically arrange all steps in a clean, top-to-bottom flow.

Duplicating Steps

Right-click a step and select Duplicate to create a copy with the same configuration. This is useful when you need similar steps with minor variations.

Grouping Steps

Select multiple steps and right-click to Group them. Groups are visual containers that help organise complex orchestrations. They have no effect on execution -- they are purely for readability.

Saving and Versioning

Saving

Click Save in the toolbar or press Ctrl+S to save your work. The orchestration is saved in its current state (Draft or Active).

Version History

DIBOP maintains a version history for each orchestration. To view previous versions:

  1. Click the Version History icon in the toolbar
  2. Browse the list of saved versions with timestamps
  3. Click a version to preview it
  4. Click Restore to revert to that version

Restoring a Version

Restoring a previous version replaces the current orchestration. The current version is preserved in the version history, so you can always go back.

Switching Between Editors

The Visual Builder, AI Composer, and manual step editor all work with the same orchestration format. You can:

  • Generate an orchestration with the AI Composer, then refine it in the Visual Builder
  • Build in the Visual Builder, then fine-tune step parameters in the manual editor
  • Switch freely between views without losing work

The visual layout (positions of steps on the canvas) is preserved when you switch back to the Visual Builder.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+S Save
Ctrl+Z Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z Redo
Delete Delete selected step or connection
Ctrl+D Duplicate selected step
Ctrl+A Select all steps
Escape Deselect all
Space (hold) Pan mode (click and drag to pan)

Next Steps