Build and Run With Weave

Description

You can start most work in PlaidCloud by telling Weave what you want, in a sentence. Weave answers with a card that says exactly what it will build or change, and nothing happens until you approve it. Everything on this page happens in the Weave dock, and every card follows the same rules:

You approve a card in the browser, with Approve 1 change (or Approve 6 changes), leave things as they are with Not now, or ask again with Change….
Every run Weave starts has ERP posting off.
Weave won’t run, change or schedule a step that writes outside PlaidCloud. It points you to the step form or the workflow instead.
Weave can do only what your role allows. If your role can’t do something, Weave says so and changes nothing.

See Approve a Change for how a card reads and how to undo it.

Tell Weave What You Want

The dialogs that create a project, a workflow, a step, an import or a dimension open on Tell Weave what you want: a box for a sentence, with a few suggested starts as links under it.

Dialog	The box asks	Suggested starts
New project	Describe the project, with an example	Start from a template, Import files from Documents, Copy a project
New workflow	What should this workflow do?	Import a file into a table, Copy steps from another workflow, Reconcile two tables
New step	What should this step do?	Import a file, Look up, Filter
Import	Which file should become a table?	Import a file into a table
New dimension	What should this dimension hold?	Build from a table’s column

Type the sentence and press Enter. The dock opens with your sentence sent. Press Shift+Enter for a new line. In New Project, Ask Weave is the main button once the box has text.

Click Fill in the form instead for the usual form, and Tell Weave instead to come back to the box. PlaidCloud remembers which you used last for each kind of object.

The workflow canvas’s New step menu starts with Describe the step…, which opens the same box for a step after the one you’re on.

The box appears when Weave chat is on and your role can create that object. Otherwise the dialog shows the form.

Empty Lists and Pages

A list with nothing in it starts from Weave too:

Projects, Workflows, Tables, Dimensions and a workflow’s steps show the sentence box.
Data editors, UDFs, Connections and Dashboards show an Ask Weave button.
An empty workflow canvas says This workflow is empty. Tell Weave what it should do, or add a step., with the box, an Import a file start and Add a step.
A project with no workflows shows a Start with Weave card on its Overview.

The list’s usual buttons, such as loading sample data, are still there below.

Describe a Workflow and Watch It Build

Describe what a workflow should do, such as Import freight.csv, look up each carrier’s region and total freight by carrier. Weave answers with one plan card, titled for example Build 3 steps in a new workflow “Freight by Carrier”, then run it. Each line of the plan says what one step does, in plain words:

Import freight.csv into a new table Freight (Carrier, Amount, Month).
Look up Region in Carriers by Carrier.
Total Amount by Carrier into Freight by Carrier.
Run Freight by Carrier. ERP posting is off for this run.

A plan can import files, extract, look up, join, union and total, and later steps can read the tables earlier steps create. Running the workflow is the plan’s last line.

When you approve, the dock shows Creating the workflow, Building step 2 of 3 and Running. On the canvas, each step appears as it’s created with a Built by Weave outline, which fades when the build ends, and a strip above the workflow says Weave is building this workflow. Click Stop on the strip to stop. Weave then says what it had built, such as Stopped part-way: built Import Freight and Lookup Region.

Weave builds into Advanced workflows. Asked to build into a Standard workflow, it offers to build a new workflow instead.
A new workflow can’t take the name of one that already exists.
Weave imports CSV, Excel, Parquet and DB2 files. A line Weave can’t build is listed as Not added: with the reason, such as a file that isn’t there or has no header row.

Run or Schedule a Workflow

Ask Weave to run a workflow, or part of one: Run Month-End Close from Allocate by Driver. The card is titled for what will run, such as Run “Month-End Close” from the step “Allocate by Driver”, and lists:

Runs — how many steps run.
Writes — the tables the run writes.
ERP posting — ERP posting is off for this run., when steps in the run post to an ERP.
Undo — A run can’t be undone: it replaces what these tables hold.

On a Standard workflow, steps run in order, so a run of steps that aren’t next to each other covers everything between them, and the card says so.

After the run, Weave says how it went, such as succeeded in 4 min, with each table’s rows and whether they’re within its usual range. If the workflow is already running, nothing starts, and Weave tells you to approve again once it finishes.

Ask Weave to schedule a workflow, such as Run Month-End Close every weekday at 06:00, or to change, turn on, turn off or delete one of its schedules. The schedule card shows When, the next three run times under Next, and Turned on. A change to an existing schedule shows it before and after. After you approve, Weave tells you when the next run is.

Running a workflow needs a role that can edit workflows. Changing schedules also needs a role that can change the project’s automation.
Weave won’t turn on or change a schedule that posts to an ERP. It says This schedule posts to the ERP. Turn it on in Schedules.
Weave won’t run or schedule a workflow that sends data outside PlaidCloud. Run it from the workflow.

Change or Add a Step

Ask Weave to change a step, such as Change Allocate by Driver so it splits by headcount. The card is titled Change “Allocate by Driver”, shows each setting before and after, and ends with Then: re-run Allocate by Driver with ERP posting off and check it succeeds. After you approve, Weave saves the change, re-runs the step, and tells you the result. The card’s Undo puts the settings back.

Ask Weave to add a step, such as Add a step after Load Freight that keeps only the 2026 rows. The card is titled Add a step “Freight 2026” after “Load Freight”, and a table the step creates is marked (new table). In an Advanced workflow the step is placed to the right of the one it follows.

Weave doesn’t change, through a card:

a step that posts to an ERP or writes outside PlaidCloud;
SQL steps, such as Extract: SQL and Import: SQL, user-defined function steps, and steps that run scripts or Python;
anything that empties, drops or deletes a table or dimension.

It says which and points you to the step form. A step that runs other workflows, or sits in more than one workflow, isn’t re-run after the change. Weave tells you to re-run it from its workflow.

Drop a File on Weave

Drag one file onto a project’s Overview, or onto an Advanced workflow’s canvas. The page says Drop a file or an Alteryx workflow here, uploads the file to Documents, and opens the dock with a card for it:

You drop	Weave proposes
A data file: CSV, TSV, TXT, Excel or Parquet	A new table, on Overview, or an import step named after the file, placed where you dropped it on the canvas.
A SQL script (`.sql`)	Steps that do what the script does. See Turn a SQL Script Into Steps.
An Alteryx workflow (`.yxmd` or `.yxwz`)	A new project with the converted workflow. See Bring In Alteryx Workflows.
A `.zip` file	Moving the Alteryx workflows in it into a new project.

Weave takes one file at a time. If you drop several, it uses the first and says so. To bring in a folder, zip it and drop the zip, or upload it to Documents and name it in the dock. A file Weave doesn’t recognize stays in Documents, and Weave tells you where.

You can also name a file that is already in Documents: Convert Revenue Prep.yxmd from Documents.

Turn a SQL Script Into Steps

Drop a .sql file, or paste the script into the dock. Weave reads it and proposes standard steps that do the same work, on a plan card such as Build 6 steps from 4 statements in a new workflow “Revenue Prep”, then run it. Dropped on a canvas, the steps go into that workflow.

The card names the SQL dialect it read the script as: Databricks, Spark, Snowflake, BigQuery, T-SQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL or StarRocks. If Weave guessed the dialect and the script is written for another database, say which and ask again.

Each line says what a step does, such as Total Amount by Region into Revenue by Region. Anything that can’t become a step is listed as Not added: with the statement and the reason, for example a statement that changes the database itself, or a table that isn’t in the project yet. A statement either converts in full or isn’t added: Weave never builds part of one.

Weave reads scripts up to 1 MB. Split a longer script into several files.
INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE and MERGE statements become steps that write new tables or update one. Weave doesn’t empty tables, so a DELETE with no WHERE isn’t added.
A table the script creates is used by the statements after it. Any other table the script reads must already be in the project.
As with any plan, Weave builds into Advanced workflows, and the run at the end has ERP posting off.

Bring In Alteryx Workflows

One Workflow

Drop an Alteryx workflow (.yxmd or .yxwz) on a project’s Overview, or name one in Documents. The card Convert “Revenue Prep” into a new project shows:

Project name — Revenue Prep (from Alteryx). The card creates a new project with the converted workflow and its tables, and copies the input files it reads into the folder beside it. Nothing in your existing projects changes.
Estimate — about how many tools the workflow has, and how many convert, need a review, or have no PlaidCloud equivalent.
Saved in — the Documents folder the project’s files go into.

When you approve, Weave converts the workflow and tells you what it made, with Open the project and Open the workflow. Input files it couldn’t find are listed, so you can add them to the folder later. Undo moves the new project to the trash.

A workflow over 25 MB, or one that takes too long to estimate, is converted in the Alteryx converter instead.

A Whole Folder

Name a folder of Alteryx workflows in Documents, such as Move in the Alteryx folder Finance Close, or drop a .zip of one on a project’s Overview. Put the files your Alteryx workflows wrote in the folder as well, and Weave compares the converted workflows’ results with them.

The card Move 12 Alteryx workflows into a new project shows the project’s name, an estimate of how the workflows convert, the output files it will compare against, and the steps it leaves out of the check because they write outside PlaidCloud. Every run has ERP posting off, and steps that write output files don’t run during the check: the tables they write are compared instead.

A large folder can take several hours. You can close PlaidCloud while it works. The job’s progress in the dock moves through unpacking, converting, importing the output files, running and comparing, then writing the report. It ends with a sentence such as Finance Close (from Alteryx) is ready: 9 of 12 workflows match the outputs you supplied, 2 differ, 1 didn’t run. 3 need a decision on the move-in report. with Open the report.

The Move-in report lists the workflows that need a decision first, then every workflow with what was recognized and converted, what to review, whether it Ran and whether its results Match the files you supplied. Each row has:

Compare — opens the comparison of that workflow’s results with your file.
Check again — proposes re-running and comparing that workflow.
Open — opens the workflow.
Assign — picks who decides on the row. They’re told in PlaidCloud. You can assign a row only to a project member who can open that workflow.

A workflow needs a decision when it didn’t convert, has tools with no PlaidCloud equivalent, didn’t run, differs from your file, or couldn’t be compared.