Getting Started with Apps

This guide provides a step-by-step overview of building an app within Syntasa. We will cover prerequisites, app creation, template types, workflows, interactive mode, and job management.

App Pre-requisites

Before building a Syntasa app, three prerequisites must be established. While most users will likely have these in place, this section outlines the setup required if they are not.

  • Connection
    A connection is required to pull files or tables into apps, enabling data ingestion via Synthesizer or data export via Orchestrator. Syntasa apps support various connection types.
  • DataStores
    DataStores, also known as "Event Stores," are sets of databases and file directories to which Syntasa apps write data. These DataStores are essential for app creation, so ensure you have at least one available before attempting to create an app.
  • Runtime
    The runtime defines the size and configuration of the data processing cluster. These runtimes can be allocated to a job or operated directly through interactive mode.

Creating App

  • User Folders
    The app is created within a folder. Under the workspace, you have an option to create different folders or use existing ones. You can also create subfolder within a folder. When you choose to create new app, it is created under the folder that was selected while creating an app.
  • Application Templates
    Three different types of application templates are used in creating the app. This article will explain the usage of each template. Furthermore, there are also sub-templates created for each template depending on the process to be used.
  • Process Types
    There are built-in code processes that require no code to configure and processes for advanced users to write or paste code into. 
  • Workflow Canvas
    The workflow canvas is the heart of the Syntasa platform where users can build apps to ingest, analyze, apply intelligence, and prepare your all-important data for meaningful business decisions.
  • Development environment
    The development environment is to test new configurations and ensure they are working per design before deploying to production.
  • Production Environment
    The production environment is where validated configurations have been deployed and historical data processed
  • Creating a Job
    This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to set up a new job within the Syntasa platform, including specifying the job's tasks, configurations, and dependencies
  • Running/Executing a Job
    Learn the steps involved in executing a job, from initiating the run to monitoring its progress and handling any errors that may arise during execution.
  • Process Modes While Running a Job
    Process modes provide the app with instructions on how to handle the processing of incoming data, such as dropping any data or only processing new data
  • An Example of Building a Data Pipeline
    This section provides steps to build a simple (but functional) one-branch pipeline for general understanding. This example showcases a no-code "From File" process. This process ingests data directly from Google Cloud Storage (GCS) and seamlessly integrates it into the Syntasa ecosystem.
  • Interactive Mode
    This enables the ability to start and leave a cluster up while building or editing an app (only available in Development workflows).
  • Deploying the Development Workflow to Production
    This article provides a detailed guide on how to transition your development workflow into a production environment, ensuring that your analytics and data processes are reliably and efficiently operational for end-users.
  • Taking Snapshot of the Workflow
    This step-by-step guide outlines the process of creating manual snapshots of your workflow for backup or version control and explains how snapshots are handled during deployment.
  • Loading a Snapshot
    Learn how to load and restore a saved snapshot of a workflow into your development environment, which is useful for reverting to a previous state or continuing work on a specific version.
  • Scheduling a Job
    This article details how to schedule jobs in a production setting using cron expressions or other triggers, enabling automated execution of tasks based on a defined schedule.
  • Supporting App Features
    a. Overview: This screen provides a history of actions taken for the app and high-level details. Actions available are to update the app name, and app description, and sorting the columns.
    b. Journal: The journal screen provides a history of saved snapshots of the app.  An app snapshot is saved when the app is deployed to production
    c. Dashboards: The dashboard screen allows 3rd party visualization applications to be embedded in the app.
    d. Dependencies: The dependencies canvas is automatically generated to depict the connections and apps the current app is associated with 

Monitoring & Reporting

  1. Job Tracker
    The purpose of this screen is to get a summary view of the last run of all jobs across all apps running in Syntasa. 
  2. Execution Report
    This screen will give a summary view of the execution list of all jobs across all apps in Syntasa for a given time period.
  3. Task Report
    The purpose of this screen is to get the summary of the task details for each job executed.