How to Test a Flow

Why conduct a testing before launching your flow?

By testing your flow, you can:

• make sure that the expected number of customers complete the flow;
• verify if your conditions are correct and how your customers are divided into branches;
• look how a specific customer goes down the flow
• test your campaigns on real events without sending them to your customers.

Meanwhile, group of steps are not completed and expectations are ignored in the test mode (campaigns in steps only generate messages but do not send them).
In other words, to conduct a fast testing with minimum actions, you do not have to create a simplified flow version by removing promo codes or bonus points generation or by limiting expectation time down to 1 minute.

You can just enable testing mode, so that you can test your flow with its final settings.

How to launch a testing

Prepare your flow and press the "Test" button:

How the testing mode operates

After the testing mode is enabled, a corresponding icon will appear in your flow. First runs are being calculated:

What runs go down to a test launch?

• event flows are launched by an initial node event;
• bulk flows are implemented once after the launch on the customers matching “Launch conditions” filter in Schedule node (10,000 customers maximum). Meanwhile, launch time settings are ignored.

Which nodes and settings are run in the test launch?

Testing includes settings of nodes, such as:

• event;
• schedule (filter only);
• distribution to the branches of the flow;
• limit (in a process launch, test runs are reset automatically)
• conditions.

The nodes and settings below are ignored:

• expectation
• group of steps (however, the testing mode is activated automatically for all campaigns in the flow → messages are generated but not sent);
• A/B testing (the testing is not launched, your clients are just divided into branches, as in the flow splitter node);
• execution frequency (event flows are executed every time a relevant event occurs, while bulk flows are executed only once after the test launch on all the customers matching the filter criteria. To repeat it, create a new version of the flow and launch a new testing);
• start and end date of flow execution;
• transactionality (events in the test are processed without a priority).

Can you launch a test flow and a process flow at the same time?

Your flow can simultaneously contain one version only, either a test one or a process one.
Copy your process flow and launch your test there for a parallel launch.

Testing results

Customer distribution and flow runs

Run mode operates like in a regular flow. The toggle feature is available after at least one customer enters the flow.

You can also choose customers from the branches and сlick on the icon next to the customer's name to see their runs:

To view a specific user's way down the flow, you can also go to "Customer flow interections" and find the user by their ID:

Generated campaigns

To view the generated messages, go to the corresponding tab in the node with the campaign and click on the ‘eye’ icon:

Generated campaigns from all nodes are collected in the tab "Executions and mailing campaigns" → "Generated messages":

For each node, mailings for the last ten clients are displayed.
For repeated runs, the last letter generated for the client will be shown.

Testing termination and flow launch

After you conducted the testing and analyzed its results, you can:

• Pause your test. You can resume it later; the statistics will be common within one version.
• Conduct a new test. To do this, go to the flow editing page, make your changes, and launch the new test. As this is a new version, the statistics in it will be reset.
• Launch a flow. To do this, go to the flow editing page—a process flow version will be created with the same settings. Launch it. Meanwhile, the test version is paused automatically:

What happens to the test runs?

Nothing. They are not counted and, as a result, do not affect execution frequency counter.
You cannot launch processing of the events of the test.

How is the test displayed in the flow history?

The test is a separate flow version.
It is marked by a corresponding icon in the flow history. Its launch and stopping are recorded as in regular versions: