Controlling processing order in FME workspace?

Question

I have created a workbench with 3 bookmarks:

1. a Creator/ProjectWise connector which downloads an Excel file from ProjectWise
2. a processing workflow
3. a second Creator/ProjectWise connector which initiates the upload of the spreadsheet

The idea being that I can write information about the data transformation step (2) into the spreadsheet and then upload it. The problem is that I can't control the sequence of events very well which means that the final step (step(3) - upload) occurs before my reader/transform/writer process (2) has had a chance to update the Excel file. I've tried setting the Creator order (no impact) and the tried a decelerator on Creator 2 but with the latter the whole workbench gets stalled.

Is there a way to control the workbench processing order without using multiple workspaces?

Answer 1

Yes this is possible. You should chain the process instead of starting each subprocess with its own Creator.

Use a FeatureWriter to write the results instead of a classic Writer. Because then you can use the Summary feature to initiate the next step. (FeatureReaders and FeatureWriters are the way to go in my opinion, because you can control read and write order.)

If you have to wait for multiple FeatureWriters simply collect the summary features with a Holder and release just one with a Sampler to initiate the next step.