If you are new to building Chains you may be wondering “what happens after I click execute?” In this post we are going to highlight what you should review after running a Chain. 

The main area to review your Chain runs and history is the Monitor tab on the left hand side of the screen. In the Monitor area you will see a list of all of your recent Chain runs with information about Chain status, the workspace and environment the Chain is in, who it was run by, and the start and end times. 

You can view the full list of all Chains or you can filter based off of the following fields located at the top of the screen: 

Once you know if your Chain has successfully executed or had an error, you can also review the specific commands within that Chain. After clicking on the Chain run itself, you will be brought into the “View Last Run” screen. This screen allows you to click into each command and view more details. 

This is an important step because it allows you to look at the Inputs, Outputs, and Logs of a command. Inputs are the data or information that is passed into a command and tells the command how to execute, Outputs are the result or data produced by the command, and Logs contain more information on what is occurring during execution and also will relay any error or success details. 

Now we will review some examples of successful runs and also an errored run. 

Below is an example of a Chain that is listing and downloading files from an SFTP server. If we click into the “List Directory” command, we can see that the command output includes two remote files that were found, viewable in the Outputs and Logs screens. We can also see what directory information and SFTP information was used in the Inputs tab. 

Another example is the “Download File” command. In this Chain we have the ability to download multiple files at once, and you can view both in the Outputs tab by clicking the dropdown option. You can also preview each file by clicking on the eyeball icon next to the file name. 

Note: Previews are only available for 24 hours after a Chain run. 

Now we will look at an example of an errored run. This example is coming from the “List Files” Workiva command. You can see in the Outputs tab that the command errored and you can see in the Inputs tab that we provided this command a Table ID. 

In the Logs tab we can see more information about why this command errored. 

In this case, the Logs tell us that we have an invalid ID and that the invalid ID is coming from the Table ID that was given. To fix this, I would need to double check my Table ID that was used in this Chain run and then re-run with the correct ID to get a successful execution. 

Have questions about reviewing Chain runs or navigating Chain errors? Leave a comment below or reach out to us at connected@workiva.com.