7.1

Debugging PlanetPress Suite Processes
Debug PlanetPress Suite Workflow Tools processes to correct errors and increase efficiency. You can also configure tasks and
make data selections on the fly when you Debug PlanetPress Suite Workflow Tools processes.
The debugging features in PlanetPress Suite Workflow Tools Configuration let you debug your processes and fine tune its
tasks.
About the Debug Mode
The debug mode is generally used to test your processes, or to design your process when the job file is changed during that
process. Debugging a process means running it either as a whole or step-by-step, with the option to skip actions and branches
as necessary, and to edit task properties as you go.
The following things are different when a process is run in debug mode:
l Processes are run regardless of their specific schedules.
l Initial input tasks are not performed. Each process takes its initial input data from its own sample data file.
l Since the initial input task is not performed, there is no actual job information to be added at the beginning of a data file.
Note that you can use the Object Inspector on your process to enter sample job information as required.
l Each process may be run step by step. Break points may be used and given steps may be passed.
l Processes are run with the credentials (login)of the user that is currently logged on, instead of the PlanetPress Work-
flow Tools service credentials. If the credentials are different, a job that runs in debug mode may fail at runtime if the
permissions are not available to the service.
Debugging your PlanetPress Suite Process
Debugging a process is separated in two parts. The first part is designing the process, which is to add the different tasks,
branches and conditions to your process and configuring them.
To debug your task:
l Make sure your process does not contain any unknown tasks (see "Unknown Tasks" (page 177)).
l Select your sample job file by using the Select button, in the PlanetPress Suite Ribbon's Debug tab.
l In the Debug tab, use the Step button to step through each of your tasks, one at a time.
As you step through each task, it is executed normally, just as if it were processing at runtime.
l Step through until your last output and verify the result.
The sample job file should generally be the exact same format as the data that you will receive when PlanetPress
Workflow Tools is processing the job at runtime. For more information on how to capture your sample data file prop-
erly, please refer to the PlanetPress Trigger and Data Capture Guide.
At any time during the debugging process, you can do the following:
l Double-click on any task to change its properties. If you change the properties of a task before you step through it,
those new properties will be used when the task is executed. Note that you cannot modify the process itself while in
debug mode (you cannot add, delete or move tasks, change branches and conditions, etc).
l Click on Skip to ignore the next task and go to the next one. The job file is not modified in any way.
l Click on View as Text in the Data group of the Debug tab to view the current job file using a text editor (Notepad by
default).
l Click on View as PDFto view the current job file in Adobe Acrobat if it is present (this will work only for PDFjob files).
Debugging PlanetPress Suite Processes
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