You need to deploy your Flow instance components in order for Flow to start fetching data from data sources, generating reports, pushing data to consumers; basically to get Flow to do all the nice stuff that Flow does.
By this point, you should have installed Flow, and created your Flow instance.
Important: Before you deploy your Flow instance, you must have configured your calendar (or calendars) according to your business requirements.
Select the “Deployment” view tab at the bottom of the Model View …
By default, your Flow deployment model will have a single Platform containing an Engine, a Message Engine and a Flow Report Server.
Right-click on the Platform and click “Deploy”.
Deployment will only work if the Flow Bootstrap Service is running on that computer. If you see an error message when deploying, it is likely that that the Flow Bootstrap Service is not running on that computer. Make sure that you have installed and configured the Flow Bootstrap Service on that computer.
Note: If you still have communication errors, confirm that port 4501 on that computer has not been blocked by the firewall.
Once you have a running Platform (i.e. no gray disk), you can right-click on the Engine, and click “Deploy”.
The gray disk will immediately turn red, but should disappear when Flow has confirmed that the Engine is running. Give it a few seconds to start the Engine.
If the red disk on the Engine does not disappear, it is likely that the Flow Bootstrap Service has not been configured correctly. Please review the Flow Bootstrap Service configuration.
To complete the deployment of your Flow System, right-click on the "Flow Server”, "Integration Engine", and "Message Engine”, and click “Deploy” for each of these components. A fully deployed Flow System will have no red or gray disks displayed in the deployment view.
Note: By default the Flow Server uses port 80. If the computer running the Flow Server has another web server running on it, make sure the default Ports do not clash (e.g. Internet Information Server (IIS), SQL Server Reporting Services, etc.) If necessary, change the Flow Server Port setting to 8000 (or any other port provisioned by your IT department). You can access the Flow Server settings by double-clicking it.
If you have issues with deploying any of your components, and the red disk does not disappear from one or more components after more than a minute since deploying, check the Flow Event Viewer log to see if there are any warnings/errors being reported.