Testing a workflow

How to test a workflow

Testing in Workflow86 is the ability to run the current Draft version of your workflow. When you are on the draft canvas, you will see that all components will have a test button. To Test your draft workflow, click on the component where you want to start the test from and then click the Test button:

Clicking this will open up the test panel for that component on the right of the screen.

Test from any component

You can test a workflow from the start, as well as from any component of a workflow onwards. For example, if we only want to test this workflow from the Query Database component onwards (rather than from the start at the Form), we can do that by clicking the test button at the Query Database component:

This will then allow you to run the workflow from the Query Database onwards.

tip

Test a workflow from any component

The ability to start a test from any component onwards is helpful when you are making changes to a particular part of a workflow, and only want to run a test from that point rather than run the entire workflow from start to finish.

Setting placeholder values for a test

When running a test, you will need to specify the values of the placeholders that are inputs into the component where you are starting the test. There are several ways this can be done.

Set test values manually

You can set each placeholder value individually by selecting the "manually set input values" options.

Use placeholder values from an existing session in a test run

You can set the placeholder values from an existing test or production session. To use the values of an existing session in a test run, click the "use values from existing session" option, and then find the session ID of the session that you want to import.

This will then load the placeholder values from that session into the fields for the test.

tip

Use data from production sessions to test fixes in draft

You can import the placeholder values from a test or production session when running a test. This is useful when you are making changes to the draft version of a workflow to fix issues in production, and would like to run a test using data from that production session to make sure the fix is correct before deploying to production.

Testing from the Form or Upload Spreadsheet

If you are testing from the Form or Upload Spreadsheet, you can choose to trigger the test by viewing and submitting via a test form or portal:

The Test from trigger page therefore displays a form which can be submitted to start the test run of the draft workflow:

This form can be filled out like a regular form:

To run the test session, click submit to submit the form.

Viewing the test results

To view the test results, navigate to the Session Logs page and then turn on this switch to display the session logs for the test data.

From here, all the test sessions will be loaded and you can track the progress of your test session just as you would with a regular session by clicking on it to open the progress view.

How does the Assign Task work in a test session?

The Assign Task works the same in a test session as in a regular session - it creates a task link which must be submitted for the test session to continue the workflow.

important

Tasks created in test mode do not appear in your inbox

The task created by an Assign Task in a test does NOT appear in the My Tasks page. This is done to ensure test tasks and production tasks are not mixed in your task inbox. To progress the workflow, you will need to click the link for that task via the test session logs.