Speed when creating new rows

[1minManager]

I have an App that clicking an action button can cause 200+ rows to be created. Firstly clicking the button locks the app for 10-20secs, Then is can take 5-6 mins to create all the rows. Is there any way to speed this up?

[Aleksi]

Please use Workflow/Data Action as it’s happening on the server side.

[1minManager]

Hi @Aleksi So the exact sequence is

1. Click an action button in the Plot table which does “Execute a seqence of actions”
2. The above then calls 4 actions, 3 of them are each just writing stuff into a column in Plot table
3. The main one though is a “execute an action on a set of rows”.
   Record of this table = Plot,
   Referenced Rows = [Related HouseMats]
   Referenced Table = HouseMats
   Referenced Action = “Copy HouseMats to Materials”
4. “Copy HouseMats to Materials” is a “add a new row to another table using values from this row” and writes stuff into 11 different columns. Its this that can sometimes repeat for 200+ times.

Can I get this any more efficent?

[Aleksi]

If you trigger them with a Workflow/DataChange, it will happen on the background and you will only see one sync(1). Have you tried that way already?

[1minManager]

No, but that should work. I’ll try it and report back

[1minManager]

Hi @Aleksi

So I’ve tried that, and it doesn’t seem to work fully. I created 2 actions to write and then clear something in a column. Thats the trigger for the workflow. The workflow then calls the origional action button that worked fine. Now that origional action button was an “exceute a sequence of…” type with the following 4 sub-actions:

1 = Write “Copy HouseMats” in a column - Works Fine
2 = A “excute on a series of rows” to copy the rows - Does not work
3 = Write user name, UserEmail() & Now() in a different column - Does not work
4 = Clear “Copy HouseMats” by writting “” to the same column - Works fine

Item 2 above works fine stright off the action button that called these 4 seperate actions. But not if the action is called by a workflow

Item 3 above works fine as a standalone action button and also if I use the origional button

Any ideas?

[1minManager]

HI @Aleksi, just wondering if you had any ideas?

Or has anyone else solved this issue (@MultiTech_Visions, @Steve, @Bellave_Jayaram)

[MultiTech]

There is definitely a way to get this to work, just a matter of getting everything aligned right.

Workflows don’t trigger auxiliary action; I think of it in layers:

The workflow can execute an action, but not anything that requires an action to trigger an action - it can only go one layer deep.

Instead, build each step out inside the workflow, with each separate action being a separate step inside the workflow.

[1minManager]

Ill try that @MultiTech_Visions. Just seemsed a bit weird that it ran only the first and last action. Missing the second I can understand, as it is a chain of actions. Including the bit you helped me with. But the 3rd just writes something to a column, like the 1st and 4th

[Steve]

Would help to see the action and workflow configurations.

[MultiTech]

@Steve indeed; otherwise it’s just guesswork.

[1minManager]

Ok, ill do the best I can. So this is the action button the user pressed in the Plot table

This is action 1. It writes this into Plot[Report] to act as a trigger for some slices. @MultiTech_Visions may remember this bit

I’'l come back to step 2 in a bit as its by fair the most complicated

Step 3 simply timestamps in Plot[Materials Imported] to record the time but also used as a rule so the main action button diapeers after its pressed.

Step 4 simply clears Plot[Report]

So back to step 3. This is the action details

Its job it to look at Plot[Related HouseMats] and copy them to the Materials table, using this action

Live_Plot is a slice used to copy data from the Plot table into the Materials table at the same time.

Hopefully this helps explain it a little more. I tried what @MultiTech_Visions said which was to replicate the main action button above with 4 sub-actions into a Workflow with 4 actions inside it. But the issues were the same - actions 2 & 3 don’t run.

[Steve]

Do any of the actions have Only if this condition is true expressions?

[1minManager]

No. Some had that set to true, others were blank. But there seems to be no correlation with this and to which actions work or not

[Steve]

Seems to me the approach here is to remove everything, break down the problem into the individual steps, and add them back one-by-one until you find the breakdown. Tedious, but seemingly necessary.

[1minManager]

I’ve kinda already done than. The existing button was working, all I did was create a workflow that called that button.

I’ve also tested each of the 4 main steps on its own and they all work fine.