What's new
in Parabola?

If you've ever used Parabola, you've probably wanted to edit specific cells of data or 'just create a reference table' more than once while building.

With the new "Create a sheet" step, you can write or paste data directly into a spreadsheet interface and use that data throughout your Flow. This is particularly useful for situations where you want to create a dynamic reference table, test different scenarios/variables, and want to cut out working across Google Sheets and Parabola.

Check out the "Create a sheet" source step and our How To documentation to learn more! 

To further Parabola's integration with the Google ecosystem, we're excited to release a new Send to Google Drive step which supports...

• Creating Excel files with multiple tabs
• Creating CSV files
• Creating and updating Google Sheet files

This step will live alongside our existing Send to Google Sheets step to provide flexibility as you build. Check out the details in our product documentation and reach out with any questions! 

Three major updates in one 📊 here’s a breakdown of the release: 

• Visualizations on the canvas: You can now drop dynamic visualizations (like charts, graphs, and tables) directly on the canvas to see reports update in real-time as you build. 
• Dynamic dashboarding capabilities: It’s now even easier to graduate from Spreadsheet Land and create BI-quality dashboards with a faster feedback loop. 
• Live editing & powerful drafts: You can now edit Flows in real-time without needing to create drafts for every change — just directly edit the live version of your Flows, and watch updates automatically save.

Check out the video below for a full overview of the new functionality — and to see these features in action, explore this collection of free demo Flows. Happy building!

We’re excited to share that Parabola Flow documentation is getting a major boost 📝

Parabola Flows now use AI to analyze every step in a Flow, automatically adding process documentation as you build. Gone are the days of writing out a detailed SOP only for your process to change the next day! 

Next time you build in Parabola, you’ll see that the new “documentation” section of every Step will be automatically updated as you build. 

Learn more about the details in this blog post.

We're excited to introduce the mini-map, a new feature designed to help you navigate large and complex flows with ease. The mini-map provides a compact, interactive overview of your entire Parabola flow, allowing you to quickly orient yourself and move between different sections of your workflow.

You can toggle the mini-map on or off using the map icon in the zoom toolbar.

Connecting to APIs in Parabola is easier than ever: The Pull from API, Enrich with API, and Send to API steps have been redesigned to make configuration and testing a breeze.

• Connection settings all in one place: Our redesigned connection panel gives you more space when you need it, and no worry when you don’t.
• View the request and response: Use new controls to view the full request and response data sent between Parabola and the API for faster testing and iteration.
• Just point and click: With the new output settings, keep the columns you need from the API, and forget the rest.

We’re excited to announce a new feature in our PDF AI parser that allows you to parse multiple formats of PDFs with greater control and precision - all in one “Pull from email attachment” step!

You can now set specific rules (called “formats”) for different types of PDFs that you receive via email, using a new mode that lets you configure multiple PDF formats — for example, invoices from different vendors — and pull key pieces of information from each.

To route PDFs to specific formats, you can create rules based on the file name, subject line, or other email metadata.

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Our Pull from Google Sheets step has been upgraded to pull more types of files from Google Drive. In addition to accessing Google Sheets, this step can be used to pull in CSV and Excel files stored in your Google Drive.

We’ve updated the Pull from inbound email step with options to pull in the full HTML representation of the body of an email, as well as a parsed list of URLs contained within the body.

This list of URLs can be used to isolate URLs from an email, fetch a document from that URL, and then process that document via the Pull from file queue step.

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Filtering rows and if else logic are at the heart of every Parabola Flow. We’ve given both steps a massive upgrade to make them faster, easier to use, and more powerful

Both steps have access to series of new operations:

• Filter dates to… (filter dates relative to now or a set date)
• Is unique (is the value in each row unique within that column)
• is not unique (is the value in each row not unique within that column)
• Text is equal to (equals but assumes text - faster than “is equal to”)
• Text is not equal to (equals but assumes text - faster than “is not equal to”)
• Text starts with (matches the first part of a cell)
• Text ends with (matches the last part of a cell)
• Text length is (length of cell = #)
• Text length is greater than (length of cell > #)
• Text length is less than (length of cell < #)
• Text matches pattern (regex match)
• Text does not match pattern (inverted regex match)
• Is between (between two numbers)
• Is not between (not between two numbers)

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Text field level options - accessible via the settings cog icon on the right side of any text field:

• Each text field can be toggled to evaluate what has typed in as a math expression, instead of just text. You can type numbers or reference them from columns using {merge tags}
• Each text field can be toggled to match based on the casing provided, or ignore the casing of the text

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Add If else column step-specific updates:

• Choose to replace value in an existing column, as opposed to only create values in a new column
• Add additional criteria to a single condition. This was already supported in the Filter rows step. For example, define a list of items that a field may be equal to.
• To accommodate all of these amazing features, the Add if else column step has a new design that is more compact and easier to read

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Parabola Flows can be set up to be triggered to run via an email. When an email is sent to a Parabola Flow, the Flow will try to enqueue the new run. If that enqueueing fails, an email is sent back to editors of the Flow alerting them that a certain email could not be processed.

With this change, that email also:

• Contains the name of the file attached that caused the issue (such as the wrong file type)
• Sends to the email address who sent the original email in to Parabola

Use the updated options in the Run another Parabola Flow to run Flows in sequence. The new options are:

• Run once per row
• Run once per row with a file URL

If Flow 1 tells Flow 2 to run, these options will allow Flow 1 to finish running before Flow 2 has finished. In the existing options, Run once and wait, and Run once per row and wait, the step will wait for Flow 2 to finish before it can finish.

Using the Run once per row with a file URL option will add runs to the file queue of Flow 2.

Use the new Pull from file queue source step to access and parse files at the end of URLs.

The file queue works like a webhook or email trigger, but can be triggered via an API call (webhook) or the Run another Parabola Flow step.

Use the updated Format dates step to easily change the format of dates, convert between timezones, round dates, and more.

This update completely overhauls the step with a new powerful date engine, updated interactions and design, and AI auto-detection.

We've added support for converting between timezones and precisely rounding dates.

Check it out here!

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Introducing, the AI co-builder. Configure steps quickly and easily using AI to transform simple prompts into complex rules and settings.

To use the AI co-builder:

1. Click the “Configure with AI” button to access the co-builder.
2. Enter instructions for how to configure the step and click “Configure it for me”
3. Once the AI has determined the right configuration, any existing settings will be replaced with the new settings.

The AI co-builder only runs when you click to configure the step. During subsequent runs, the step will not use AI to create results.

Now available in limited steps during the beta:

• Replace with regex
• Filter rows
• Format dates
• Find & replace
• Add if / else column

We're thrilled to launch Parabola University, a dedicated space on our website featuring video tutorials that guide you through creating effective Flows. What's more, you can access these helpful videos directly from the menu bar while you're building Flows.

Our website and product interface have undergone a stunning transformation! Explore the new colors, styles, and overall look and feel that reflect our commitment to making your experience more vibrant and user-friendly. It’s not just a makeover; it’s an upgrade to how you interact with Parabola.

We've released a few new features to make sharing and getting around Flows easier.

🎨 Colorful, Collapsible Cards: Dive into our latest update where you can now compress parts of your Flow with collapsible cards and organize them with vibrant, colorful banners. It's easier than ever to manage and share your workflow.

🧹 Simplified Flow Navigation: Alongside, we’ve refined the navigation to smoothly toggle between Published and Draft versions of your Flow, ensuring a cleaner and more intuitive experience.

The Pull from Email Attachment step now supports creating URLs to access the files that have been sent to a Flow.

When this option is enabled, the step can be configured to create URLs that are publicly accessible, accessible only to members of your Parabola team, or accessible to teammates who have access to the Flow.

More API request body formatting options

The "Protocol" dropdown in request body of all three API steps has been replaced with a "Format" dropdown.

In addition to JSON and GraphQL, Parabola now supports plain text, form-data, and x-www-form-urlencoded formatting types.

When using these options, if an API step does not already have a "Content-Type" header included, we will also now automatically add the right one, according to the last selection in the "Format" field.

This is available on all API steps - Pull from AP, Enrich with API, and Send to API

Merge tag support in header values

Utilize merge tags, columns referenced by name and wrapped in {curly braces}, within the value field of a custom header to merge in values for each API call from the input data.

Available in the Enrich with API and Send to API steps.

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We've completely overhauled the Flow builder to give you more performance, faster building, and more intuitive features.

Canvas

• Infinite canvas so you can build as far and wide as you’d like
• Better defined grid for improved spacing throughout your Flow
• Better performance for even your largest Flows
• Improved zoom and fit controls on the canvas

Steps and arrows

• Smoother arrow connection
• Updated design of step controls

Cards

• Place steps anywhere inside of cards
• Hold shift, click, and drag to multi-select steps inside of cards
• Move many steps in, out, and between cards
• Updated design of card controls

Try it out in your Flows now!

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Brand-new integration, hot off the press: we now support connecting to Microsoft SharePoint and OneDrive!

We want all teams to be able to access their data as easily as possible. With these new steps, you can access any XLS and CSV files in SharePoint or OneDrive. Pull your files into a Flow, create new files, or update existing files.

This integration is available to all customers. Please refer to our documentation for more details!

Our latest release is next-level: it converts even your gnarliest PDFs into usable data, with really simple configuration. 

Now combining two elements of AI—battle-tested OCR and cutting edge multi-modal LLMs—Parabola does all the hard work transcribing and importing your data for you, so there’s no setup required on your end. 

Want to learn more about this new capability? Learn more

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1. The next time that you authenticate a Google Sheets step, you will see an updated experience. Instead of selecting files from a dropdown, you can use the native Google Drive file selector to find your file by searching or navigating through your Drive.

(Note: you will need to reauthorize existing Google Sheets steps in order to select a new file.)‍

2. When sending data to Google Sheets, you can now select a folder in which to create the new sheet(s), as opposed to always creating the file in the root of the drive.

We hope these upgrades make connecting to and using Google Sheets within Parabola easier and more delightful!

To take advantage of these changes, be sure to refresh your Flow.

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By popular demand, our Email a CSV Attachment step now supports dynamic values. Values can be used in any field: the email subject, body, recipients, and even the file name of the attachment. Simply reference the desired column using merge tags {}, and the email will automatically insert the first row from that column. All the details here!