Examining Workflow Runs
Examine Workflow Run assists Tenant Administrators in troubleshooting or fine tuning workflow execution. The Examine option is available via the Right Click context menu, or via selecting the Workflow Run record and selecting Examine from the Action list.
Examine Workflow Run from Context Menu
This will show summary page with details that may be toggled on (blue) or off (gray). The number of tabs shown depends on what activities are in the workflow, as well as the state of the workflow; for example, if there are no Variables in the Workflow, then the Variables tab will not be present.
Below is an example page of Examine Workflow Run on a failed Workflow.
The Examine Workflow Run Summary Page
State information
There are up to six potential information tabs that will be available in the Examine page. At the bare minimum, Steps Taken and Time in Activities will always be available.
- Inputs
- Variables
- Steps Taken
- Time in Activities
- Activity Outputs
- Child Runs
Inputs
Inputs section of Examine Workflow Run
This the input parameter(s) to the workflow, which links to the object(s) view form. Tenant Administrators may check here to verify that the expected Input is being passed into the Workflow - should this be unexpected, the flow must be traced upstream to determine why.
Variables
Variables section of Examine Workflow Run
The current state of Variable values are shown in this section. If the Workflow run has produced some unexpected results, knowing what the Variable values are will assist in correctly tracing through the execution path.
Steps taken
Steps Taken section of Examine Workflow Run
This is the ordered sequence of activities (limited to the last 200). This information is used to determine the exact path this Workflow Run is or has taken to assist in troubleshooting a Workflow Run, such as:
- Walking through the Workflow to check that given the understood Inputs, Variables and expected state of fields on which Workflow Calculations are dependent that the Workflow is following the intended path
- Using the Timestamp to interleave the execution history of Activities across multiple concurrently running Workflows. This is of significant importance where changes effected by one Workflow may impact other running Workflows. For example, Workflow A makes a change to a field value on Record X, and Workflow B using using that value from Record X as an evaluator in a Gateway Activity.
- The Run (ms) metric will assist in identifying performance bottlenecks at the individual Step level. Conversely, the Time in Activities tab provides aggregated time metrics.
Time in Activities
Time in Activities section of Examine Workflow Run
Summary activity information is shown here in milliseconds, divided into preparation time - Evaluate inputs(ms) and running time - Total time (ms). This information is useful when Tenant Administrators are seeking to optimise the run time of Workflows by providing direction as to where the most time is being spent by the Workflow Run under inspection.
By comparing the Time in Activities in several Workflow Runs of the same Workflow, Tenant Administrators may be able to infer additional information such as whether it has been degrading over time (which may be symptomatic of growth of the volume of data the Workflow is interacting with), or if a particular Workflow Run is an outlier (Workflow Runs before and after are similar, but the one under inspection is significantly greater - which may be symptomatic of varying Platform load over the course of the day).
Activity outputs
Activities Outputs section of Examine Workflow Run
These are Entities that have been generated by the workflow, such URL Links, new Records, User Messages/Inputs, or Tasks from a Launch Person Campaign or User Action activity.
Check here to verify that the expected Outputs were created by the Workflow.
Child runs
Child Runs section of Examine Workflow Run
This section lists Workflows that were initiated from the current workflow by a Run Workflow activity. Each Workflow Run in the list is a link to the Examine Workflow Run page for that specific Child Run.
Note that if any Child Workflow Run fails, the Parent Workflow Run will also be marked as failed.