Enfocus Community

This is a general question where I would like others' input on what they have success with. I have many flows that I like to connect together - the end of one flow becomes the start of a new flow.
The traditional method is the end of the first flow is a folder. You don't strip the unique ID. The folder then acts as a hot folder, the start of the next flow. The job retains all private data and metadata it might have.
This works, but a little slow in that the job can sit in the folder and wait for Switch to poll the folder.
There are other methods that will send the job from one to the next - Switch2Switch, FlowLinks. I believe Portals is outdated now and I never got a chance to use that.
What do others think is the best method to connect flows together - reliable, fast, fail-safe? Please give me your opinions. I am running Switch Fall 2024 on a Studio M1 ARM Mac which is running OS 14.7.4. I have had issues lately where Switch seems to fall asleep - so files stop processing, and any hot folders accumulate files and they never exit the hot folders. I use FlowLinks version 9 (version 10 was pulled out some time ago). I like it a lot, but not sure if it might be to blame for the sleeping issue. I don't have any reason to think that it does – or doesn't – have any relation to the problem. Maybe others use FlowLinks a lot with great success which would suggest that my problem is caused by some other factor. I don't use Time Machine auto backup on the Mac, no anti virus either, although all of the servers it connects to do use anti-virus. I have gotten IT to exclude any server hot folders from anti-virus scans. I don't allow my Mac to fall asleep, which is an option in the Mac Energy Saver settings.
My original question is most important: what's best to connect flows together? I will go from there.

This is interesting. It is good to hear that FlowLinks is something you prefer. I do know you can preserve all job data, private and otherwise, using the traditional folder method so long as you do not strip the unique ID at the termination of the first flow, where it empties into the hot folder of the second flow. It is somewhat slow because of the hot folder polling time which is why I switched over to FlowLinks some time ago.

I use FlowLinks to keep the individual flows less complicated and pared down, so I don't have flows with a huge and complex canvas. Much easier to read and follow the logic.

The cleanup setting is interesting. I've never looked at that. Mine is on 24 hours, which must be the default. I might consider changing it to see if I have some improvement. I wonder why the default is 24 hours.

Hi,
Flow-links and Subflows are both incredibly useful tools (and free!) for connecting flows, each serving a distinct purpose while working on a similar mechanism with slight variations.

Subflows are ideal when structuring your flows with a "main" flow acting as the backbone, sending files to functions or subflows for processing.
On the other hand, Flow-links is more simple to use and is better suited for connecting input flows to the backbone or routing files to their final endpoints.