Performance: Activity analysis

When a large activity takes a long time to complete, it can be difficult to identify the rule that is responsible for the reduction in performance. You can use activity analysis to measure how long each rule takes to process. Based on that information, you can then take steps to optimize activity performance.

Analyze activity performance

To analyze the performance of an activity:

1. Open your application in the appropriate DTAP environment and open Developer Tools. Then either:
   • Perform the activity (either from the application or using Developer Tools) and then select the Log tab. Select the log row with the activity socket. Then, click the graph icon and copy the JSON string.
   • If you cannot perform the activity, select the Platform/API Requests tab and find the correct request by searching for Time, L2 Duration, or Worker (e.g. CaseGetActivityRequestWorker, CasePostActivityRequestWorker, PlatformPollWorker). Then, click Columns, enable the performanceLog column and copy the JSON string.
2. Return to the Studio and open the activity designer for the relevant activity.
3. On the toolbar, click the settings icon and then click the performance insights icon.
4. Paste the JSON string that you previously copied to the clipboard and click OK.

The results are displayed alongside each rule (such as a mapping, trigger or condition) in the activity designer:

• Red icons indicate rules that take more than 20% of the total time.
• Orange icons indicate rules that take between 5% and 20% of the total time.
• Yellow icons indicate rules that take between 1% and 5% of the total time.
• Green icons indicate rules that take less than 1% of the total time.
• Gray blocked icons indicate rules that have not been performed. For example, in the case of an If then else rule, usually only one branch is performed.

Move your mouse over the icon to see how long a rule took to perform. If the rule was executed multiple times, this is also displayed.

When you click through a trigger to another activity, you will also see the analysis for that nested time.

When you have finished the performance analysis, you can switch off the 'Performance insights' via the 'Settings' icon.

Tip:

You can also view the progress of an activity in real time using Developer Tools. From the Developer Tools toolbar, toggle the automatic progress icon on and then perform an activity. Note that for larger activities, this can create too much overhead. In this case, analyze the performance as described above.

Optimize activity performance

Once you have identified the rules that are taking a long time to process, you need to work out why those rules are causing performance issues. Unfortunately there is no step-by-step process for this. Potential causes of performance issues include:

• A system service is a bit slower.
• Mappings that reference datasets. For more information about analyzing and optimizing dataset performance, see Performance: Dataset analysis.
• A rule requires the same step to be performed multiple times.