Flow Config's Toolbars and Indicators
The Flow Zone, the Defaults toolbar, and what the coloured marks on a template entity are telling you.
Two toolbars sit above the Flow Config views, and a set of small coloured marks appears on entity icons in the tree. None of the three is self-explanatory, and together they account for a good deal of how quickly a model gets built.
The Flow Zone#
The Flow Zone is the strip of icons along the top of the window, and it works in both directions.
Drag an icon out to create something. Drag the Folder icon into the Model view and you get a new folder at the drop point. The same works for events, metrics and measures — and for measures, each interval type is its own icon, so dragging the hourly icon creates an hourly measure directly rather than creating a measure and then setting its interval.
Drop something on an icon to act on it. Drag a measure from the Model view onto the calculator icon and Infohub builds a calculation from it.
The drop target is what makes it worth learning. Right-clicking to reach New → Measure and then choosing an interval is three interactions; dragging the right icon is one. Over a model with a few hundred measures that difference is most of an afternoon.
The Defaults toolbar#
Beside it sits Defaults, which sets what a newly created measure inherits:
| Default | Applied to |
|---|---|
| Default Interval | The interval type a new measure is created with |
| Default Unit of Measure | Its unit |
| Default Value Format | Its format string |
| Default Backfill Date and Time | The point from which it backfills |
These apply however the measure is created — right-clicking a metric and choosing New, dragging an interval type out of the Flow Zone, or dragging a namespace item in from a data source.
Set the defaults before a building session, not after. This is the single cheapest habit in Flow Config. Creating forty hourly measures in cubic metres with a common format is forty objects that need no follow-up editing if the defaults were right, and forty that do if they were not. Set them for the batch you are about to build, then change them for the next batch.
The defaults are a convenience for creation. Changing one does not reach back and change measures already made.
Status indicators on template entities#
A small coloured mark in the top-left corner of an entity's icon reports its template status. This is how a large model tells you where attention is needed without you opening anything.
| Mark | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Dark blue | This entity's version does not match its template — it needs an update |
| Light blue | A child entity needs an update. Follow the tree down from here until you find the dark blue one |
| Grey | This entity, or something beneath it, is unreleased |
| Red | This entity, or something beneath it, has a fault |
The light blue mark is the one that saves time and the one people misread. It does not mean this object is out of date — it means something below it is, and it propagates all the way up the tree. So a light blue folder at the top of a large model is a trail to follow, not a problem in itself.
Grey is worth acting on promptly for a different reason: an unreleased template instantiates nothing, quietly, which is the most common templating surprise. See Templates: Concepts.
Diagnosing#
| Symptom | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| New measures keep getting the wrong interval or unit | The Defaults toolbar; set it before building, not after |
| Changing a default did not change existing measures | By design — defaults apply at creation only |
| A folder shows light blue but looks correct | A descendant needs a template update; follow the tree down to the dark blue entity |
| Everything shows grey | Something in the template hierarchy is unreleased |
| A dragged icon created the wrong object | Each measure interval type has its own icon in the Flow Zone; check which one you dragged |
| Red on a parent with no obvious fault | The fault is on a child; follow it down, then see Diagnosing Stuck or Faulted Measures |