Search Crosser Knowledge Base

Using ‘Disable’ and ‘Show Selected’ when debugging Flows

When working with more complex Flows it is often desirable to limit the scope of testing. Then the ‘Disable’ feature can be useful. You find this setting on the General tab in the module settings. When you disable a module it will not be started and no messages will be processed. Since it’s not started it will also not do any validation of the settings, i.e. you can keep modules in the Flow that are not yet fully configured, if you want to test other parts of the Flow.

 

Crosser Flow Studio | Disable Modules when Testing
Crosser Flow Studio | Disable Modules when Testing

 

Some additional ideas for using Disable:

  • Turn off output modules to not send corrupt data to external systems, while troubleshooting an internal problem.
  • In Flows with a long sequence of modules and you are trying to fix a problem in the first part of the Flow you can turn off the module after the one that causes problems, to prevent generating a lot of additional errors.

 

Crosser Flow Studio | Show Selected when Testing
Crosser Flow Studio | Show Selected when Testing

 

Another handy feature is the Show Selected option, available in the Debug window. If you enable debugging on many modules you may end up with a lot of messages in the debug window and it can be difficult to find the ones you are interested in. If you switch to Show Selected you will only see messages from modules that are selected in the Flow. You select a module by clicking on it. You can select multiple modules using shift-click.

About the author

Goran Appelquist

Göran has 20 years experience in leading technology teams. He’s the lead architect of our end-to-end solution and is extremely focused in securing the lowest possible Total Cost of Ownership for our customers.

"Hidden Lifecycle (employee) cost can account for 5-10 times the purchase price of software. Our goal is to offer a solution that automates and removes most of the tasks that is costly over the lifecycle.

My career started in the academic world where I got a PhD in physics by researching large scale data acquisition systems for physics experiments, such as the LHC at CERN. After leaving academia I have been working in several tech startups in different management positions over the last 20 years.

In most of these positions I have stood with one foot in the R&D team and another in the product/business teams. My passion is learning new technologies, use it to develop innovative products and explain the solutions to end users, technical or non-technical."