Docs / Shaping data

Steps and API calls

A workflow is a trigger and a list of steps. The first step gets rows, the ones after it shape them, and the last one sends or saves them. This section goes through the steps that move and shape data. Each page says what the step does, what its settings are, what it costs and what the run says about it.

What counts as an API call

An API call is each request Ladeworks makes to one of your integrations. Your plan includes a number of them each month, and the Workflows page and the builder show how many a workflow uses.

• Pull from an endpoint: 1 for each page of results.
• Push to an endpoint: 1 for each row, or 1 for each batch when batching is on. A record already sent and unchanged makes none.
• Get details for each row: 1 for each row.
• Read a CSV and Write a CSV: 1 for each file, wherever it is: a file server, an uploaded CSV, or a CSV kept by Ladeworks for download. A write that makes no file costs nothing.
• Send a message: 1 for each message.

These cost nothing: filtering, mapping, removing duplicates, splitting a list, waiting and End run if. Retries cost nothing either: only the first attempt counts. Folder checks for "When a file lands" that find no new file are free, and so is a run that is refused before it reads a file or makes a request, for example because the file is over the size limit. Test runs count like any other run.

The builder shows the estimate per step on its card ("~2 calls", "No API calls") and for the whole workflow in the usage line. The step that surprises people most is Push: ten thousand rows sent one at a time are ten thousand calls, which batching cuts to about a hundred.

The steps

• Pull from an endpoint: fetch records from an API, page by page.
• Push to an endpoint: send each row to an API, in batches, without sending anything twice.
• Read a CSV and Write a CSV: from and to a file server, an upload or a download.
• Filter rows: keep the rows that match.
• Map fields: rename, transform and translate.
• Remove duplicates: keep one row for each key. On Starter, Pro and Business.
• Split a list into rows: one row for each item in a list.
• Get details for each row: call another endpoint once for each row. On Starter, Pro and Business.
• Suggestions: how the builder points at the step you probably want next.

Other steps (End run if, Send a message, Wait, Start another workflow, Read a file from a link and Request a report and wait) are covered with advanced workflows. Which step types a plan can use is set by the plan, and the Add a step panel shows the others locked.

Rows come through one at a time. A step never holds a whole file or a whole list of results in memory.