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Testing automations in fme server

  • May 22, 2020
  • 6 replies
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ebygomm
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Does anyone have any hints and tips for testing automations in fme server 2019?

Examples

I have a scheduled automation and want to test whether an email gets sent correctly reporting on job success or failure, do i have to manually change the schedule to 5 minutes in the future to do this or is there another way?

I want to check whether an email that is constructed using user-keys returns the correct output, do I have to artificially construct workspaces that fail to check the fail part of the automation?

I'm thinking that creating a dummy workspace with a parameter that will control a pass or fail result is and building the automation with this initially might be the way to go but wonder if I'm missing something?

Best answer by hollyatsafe

Hi @ebygomm,

I just wanted to add a note that the Trigger button is only available when the Automation is running.

I'd also agree that forcing the translation to fail is the only way to test your email body is correctly parsing the output keys. Please feel free to post an idea if you have any suggestions on how to improve this though. Improvements testing of Automation workflows is on our radar, including the ability to send an example message through the Automation, however at this point there is no timeline so any suggestions you have are very welcome!

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6 replies

nic_ran
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  • nic_ranContributor
  • Contributor
  • 218 replies
  • May 22, 2020

You can manually trigger an Automation Schedule to run by selecting the Schedule in the Automation, then clicking the "Trigger" button at the bottom of the Schedule parameters window.

As for testing failure emails, yes, I think the only way to do that is to force your translation to fail somehow.

H
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  • hollyatsafe
  • 719 replies
  • Best Answer
  • May 22, 2020

Hi @ebygomm,

I just wanted to add a note that the Trigger button is only available when the Automation is running.

I'd also agree that forcing the translation to fail is the only way to test your email body is correctly parsing the output keys. Please feel free to post an idea if you have any suggestions on how to improve this though. Improvements testing of Automation workflows is on our radar, including the ability to send an example message through the Automation, however at this point there is no timeline so any suggestions you have are very welcome!

ebygomm
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  • ebygommInfluencer
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  • 3434 replies
  • May 22, 2020

Hi @ebygomm,

I just wanted to add a note that the Trigger button is only available when the Automation is running.

I'd also agree that forcing the translation to fail is the only way to test your email body is correctly parsing the output keys. Please feel free to post an idea if you have any suggestions on how to improve this though. Improvements testing of Automation workflows is on our radar, including the ability to send an example message through the Automation, however at this point there is no timeline so any suggestions you have are very welcome!

Ah thanks for that, I hadn't spotted it because i was looking for a way to test prior to setting the automation running :-)

 

nic_ran
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  • nic_ranContributor
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  • 218 replies
  • May 22, 2020

Hi @ebygomm,

I just wanted to add a note that the Trigger button is only available when the Automation is running.

I'd also agree that forcing the translation to fail is the only way to test your email body is correctly parsing the output keys. Please feel free to post an idea if you have any suggestions on how to improve this though. Improvements testing of Automation workflows is on our radar, including the ability to send an example message through the Automation, however at this point there is no timeline so any suggestions you have are very welcome!

As an improvement, I'd suggest adding the ability to trigger any kind of Automation trigger event from within the Automations interface. I think only Schedules can currently be triggered. For example, you can't trigger a topic subscription, for that you need to save the Automation and go to the Notifications and fire the Topic from there. I haven't checked the directory watch and similar trigger events but suspect them to be the same.

I posted an idea for this here:

https://knowledge.safe.com/idea/114482/fme-server-automation-simplify-trigger-event-testi.html?

ebygomm
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  • ebygommInfluencer
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  • 3434 replies
  • July 11, 2025

Did I ever post an idea about this? 5 years on I still find that testing anything other than the simplest automation is really difficult and time consuming and involves various bodges to test failure routes.

mattmatsafe
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  • mattmatsafeSafer
  • Safer
  • 108 replies
  • July 14, 2025

​@ebygomm not from what I could find. It would be great if you could share the pain points you experience when testing automations in an Idea to improve Automation testing!

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