Expansion Call Unit

Expansion Call Unit

Overview

The Expansion Call Unit is an action unit in the Flow Editor/Designer that enables a flow to invoke extension or expansion services to perform advanced, customizable, or domain-specific operations beyond the core system's capabilities. This unit is used to call externally defined expansion logic or add-on services that extend the application’s functionality.

What it does:
  1. Takes an input object (like a document, a collection, or a structured dataset).
  2. Expands it into smaller units or elements so that each can be processed individually.
  3. Often used before a For-Each Unit, because once expanded, you can iterate over the individual parts.
How it works:
  1. Input: A complex entity (e.g., a document with multiple sections, a ZIP file with multiple files, or a JSON with nested arrays).
  2. Expansion: Breaks down the entity into its components:
    1. Pages of a document.
    2. Files inside a folder or archive.
    3. Records inside a dataset.
  3. Output: A list or collection of items that can be passed to subsequent steps (like For-Each).
Use Case:
  1. Document Processing: Expand a PDF into individual pages for OCR.
  2. Data Pipelines: Expand a JSON array into individual records for transformation.
  3. Batch Operations: Expand a ZIP archive into separate files for upload.
Visual Representation