# What are Dataflows?

The ETL and ELT functionality of Astera Data Stack is represented by Dataflows. When you open a new Dataflow, you’re provided with an empty canvas knows as the dataflow designer. This is accompanied with a Toolbox that contains an extensive variety of objects, including Sources, Destinations, Transformations, and more.

<figure><img src="https://3083465318-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FsR50Wa7EwZGlmPSAMkkf%2Fuploads%2FNIycNilnJMp2CRoiryPl%2F1.png?alt=media&#x26;token=562956d3-2961-4417-a44a-3e150d5d29c3" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

Using the Toolbox objects and the user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, you can design ETL pipelines from scratch on the Dataflow designer.

### Dataflow Toolbar Commands

The Dataflow Toolbar also consists of various options.

<figure><img src="https://3083465318-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FsR50Wa7EwZGlmPSAMkkf%2Fuploads%2FhpppKe3sfx6PcUKjso6L%2Fimage.png?alt=media&#x26;token=5eb194de-3d43-48d2-81fd-dbf489492403" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

These include:

* *Undo/Redo:* The Dataflow designer supports unlimited Undo and Redo capability. You can quickly Undo/Redo the last action done, or Undo/Redo several actions at once.
* *Auto Layout Diagram:* The Auto Layout feature allows you to arrange objects on the designer, improving its visual representation.
* *Zoom (%):* The Zoom feature helps you adjust the display size of the designer. Additionally, you can select a custom zoom percentage by clicking on the Zoom % input box and typing in your desired value.
* *Auto-Size All:* The Auto-Size All feature resizes all the object in a manner where all fields of the expanded nodes are visible and empty area inside the object is cropped out.
* *Expand All:* The Expand All feature expands or enlarges the objects on the designer, improving the visual representation.
* *Collapse All:* The Collapse All feature closes or collapses the objects on the designer, improving the visual representation and reducing clutter.
* *Use Orthogonal Links:* The Use Orthogonal Links feature replaces the links between objects with orthogonal curves instead of straight lines.
* *Data Quality Mode:* Data Quality Mode in Astera enhances Dataflows with advanced profiling and debugging by adding a Messages node to objects. This node captures statistical information, such as, TotalCount, ErrorCount, and WarningCount etc.
* *Safe Mode:* The Safe Mode option allows you to study and debug your Dataflows in cases when access to source files or databases is not available. You can open a Dataflow/Subflow and then proceed to debug or understand it after activating Safe Mode.
* *Show Diagram Overview:* This feature opens a Diagram Overview panel, allowing you to get an overview of the whole Dataflow designer.
* *Link Actions to Create Maps Using AI:* The AI Auto-mapper semantically maps fields between different data layouts, automatically linking related fields, for example, "Country" to "Nation."

In the next sections, we will go over the object-wise documentation for the various Sources, Destination, Transformations, etc., in the Dataflow Toolbox.