Hello all,
if you would like to speed up testing process of a Flow Designer's "Wait for a duration of time" Flow Logic, then you came to the right place to see how it can be done. I created a simple Flow to show you the steps in detail as it has slightly changed from Rome release where prior Rome, Events for "Wait for a duration of time" were created once Flow Designer Step hit this Flow Logic.
1. Once the Flow kicks in and "Wait for a duration of time" Flow Logic executed a record is inserted into the Schedule [sys_trigger] table
2. Find the record by filtering, the name of the the schedule is flow.fire you can also filter down further if you need to
3. Once you find the record change the "Next action" field's value to any past date/time - I changed it to 2023-03-07 14:24:38 from 2023-03-08 14:24:38 as you can see in the screenshot
4. After changing the 'Next Action' value, Event is created in [sysevent] table, and now you can change the 'Process on' field's value to any past date/time - I changed it to 2023-03-07 14:24:38 from 2023-03-08 14:24:38 as you can see in the screenshot
5. Now you can refresh and see that the 'Processed' field got automatically populated with current date which for me (instance) was (2023-03-08 13:56:04
6. BINGO! Go to your Flow's execution and check that the "Wait for a duration of time" Flow Logic has been executed
Thanks for reading and happy developing,
Vo - LinkedIn
- In Workflows, when the sys_trigger is updated to a past date/time, the context moves from "Waiting" to an empty state, and the Workflow proceeds.
- But in Flow Designer, it works differently. When the Flow hits the "Wait for duration of time" step, it creates a sys_trigger record. However, at the actual scheduled wait-end time, the Flow engine checks if that trigger is due for execution.
- So, if you update the Next action in sys_trigger to a past date/time, the Flow engine misses that trigger when it checks, and the Flow gets stuck in the "Waiting" stage because it no longer finds the scheduled event.
- Setting the Next action to a past or future date/time won’t reduce the actual wait in Flow Designer. The Flow engine relies on the original wait duration internally, so the Flow will remain stuck until that duration has fully elapsed. The best way to speed up testing is to reduce the wait time directly in the Flow step configuration.
