Miscellaneous
Logging
Records what every step before it did to the data — rows in and out, columns added and removed, settings, timings and errors — as a table, and optionally as a .fdlog or .html report. It has two outputs: Success when every step before it worked, Failure when any of them failed.
When to use it
Use it to explain or audit a pipeline: to show a colleague what happened to 1,240 rows on their way to 312, to keep a record of each scheduled run, or to find the step where rows went missing. Use the Failure output to act on a broken run — save or send the failure report — instead of the run simply stopping.
In a pipeline
File InputFilter RowsLoggingExport CSV
Settings
| Setting | Type | Required | Default or hint |
|---|---|---|---|
| Report Title | text | — | e.g. Monthly sales clean-up |
| Save Report File | select | — | |
| File Name (without extension) | text | — | pipeline-log |
| Save Report To | text | — | Server folder, e.g. logs (inside your workspace or an allowed folder) |
Example
Log a clean-up before exporting the log itself
- Report Title=Monthly sales clean-up
- Save Report File=Web page (.html)
- Save Report To=logs
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| File Input | Reads data/sales.csv |
| Filter Rows | Keeps Region equals UK |
| Step | Node | Node Type | Rows In | Rows Out | Columns Added | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sales CSV | File Input | 0 | 1240 | Order, Region, Amount | OK |
| 2 | UK only | Filter Rows | 1240 | 312 | — | OK |
The output is an ordinary table, so it can feed a Filter Rows (say, Status equals Error) or an Export CSV like any other data.
Worth knowing
- It only logs the steps it depends on. A step on a separate branch, or anything after the Logging node, never appears — those have either not run or have nothing to do with it.
- No data values are ever recorded: only counts, column names, settings and timings, so a log is safe to share.
- Download Report in the properties panel runs the steps before the node as a preview, so it never writes files; set Save Report File to keep a copy on every real run, including scheduled ones.
- Put it after a Loop to log the whole loop, including the nodes inside it. Runs shows how many times each ran.
- Output columns are stable — Step, Node, Rows In, Rows Out, Status and so on — so a pipeline that reads the log will keep working.
- Exactly one output fires per run. Success carries the step table above; Failure carries a failure table — Step, Node, Status (OK, Failed or Not run), Error, rows, columns and settings — so you can see where the run broke and which steps never ran because of it.
- When a step fails and a Logging node comes after it, the run carries on far enough for the log to report it: steps that needed the failed step's output are skipped, the Failure output runs, and the run is still marked failed. Without a Logging node, a failure stops the run as before.
- A connection made before the node had two outputs counts as Success.