How to manually execute a Process

Useful for integration testing as well as for manually performing tasks.

In order to run a Process when you need it, instead of relying on automation from the different Triggers, there's a useful action called Run once for the Processes and Subprocesses in Frends. This will execute the Process with the Manual Trigger commonly available in Processes.

Step by Step Tutorial Available

If you prefer more visual or interactive guidance on how to run Processes manually in Frends, you can find a step-by-step walkthrough from your own environment's home page, under Onboarding by selecting "Tutorial 1, Step 4: Running the Process" tutorial.

Requirements

To run a Process manually or automatically through Triggers, an Agent is required in the Agent Group the Process is deployed to. Agents are what actually perform the actions defined within Processes, so in addition to Environment and Agent Group, you will also need an Agent on a server or computer to run Processes.

Frends at a minimum comes with Development Environment with a Cloud Agent set up, so it's not required to have your own Agents running to follow this guide, but for other purposes than light testing or development, it's recommended to set up your own Agent as well.

Having a Manual Trigger in Process is not required. In case there is no Manual Trigger in a Process, an implicit Manual Trigger with no parameters will be used to trigger the Process. However, if the Process expects some values from an API Trigger for example, the values cannot be provided and the Process execution will likely fail.

How to run Process once

In order to run a Process manually, head over to Process list and select the Agent Group you would like to execute the Process in.

Use the Agent Group selection in Process list to change displayed Agent Group and its Processes.

When correct Agent Group is selected, find your Process from the Process list and click on the ellipsis button to open Process actions.

You can then select Run once to launch the Process.

Run once option is the first on the Process actions list.

In case there are any parameters defined in the Process's Manual Trigger, the values will be prompted from the user before starting the Process. If there are no parameters defined, the Process will launch immediately.

Once the Process has started execution, you can go ahead and open the Process Instances for the Process to see what is being done within the Process execution.

Example of parameters being prompted for manual execution.