Workflow tool lineage/dependancies - bulk delete unneeded tools

[Phil_P]

Hi all,

Does anyone know of a quick way to identify all the tools in a workflow that are linked to a selected tool?

We have a messy workflow created by someone no longer in the team, there are many outputs of the flow (and lots of dead ends and redundant sections). I'd like to be able to select a tool and then delete any tools that are not needed for it to function.

I could manually go through and delete things but it would take a while, just wanted to check if there was a quicker way?

We do generally have a best practice approach to design to avoid this issue but for various reasons it wasn't used in this case :(

any help appreciated

[DavidSkaife]

Hi @Phil_P 

When you select a tool you can see the connected tools (both incoming and outgoing) from the configuration window, select the Navigation option;

This should help identify which tools are connected etc, but i suspect it will still be a fairly manual process to tidy up :(

[Phil_P]

Hi @DavidSkaife 

Thanks for pointing that out, I hadn't seen that functionality before.

It's a shame it doesn't let you automatically track back all the way up the lineage of the workflow section though :(

I often copy sections to a blank workflow for bug testing, would speed that process up as well.

I guess I'll have to tackle it manually 

[Taylor_S]

None of the tools happened to have been annotated with specific names did they? Or have descriptions that indicate use? If so you could also leverage the ctrl+F functionality to search out those specific keywords and delete tools that way. So for example, if you know that there is a section dedicated to Google Drive that is now a dead end, and you know those tools are annotated with the "Google Drive" or "Drive" keywords, you could use the ctrl+F functionality to search out those tool's specifically using the keywords and delete them that way. You could also leverage this in tandem with navigation functionality to expedite your process of section location and sifting, depending on how big the workflow is. It's definitely not bulk deletion by any stretch but it is another way to sift through a large workflow.

I too would love to see the functionality you mention!

Sorry to hear about your predicament but I wish you the best luck!  

[Phil_P]

No such luck unfortunately :(

The workflow was something that grew out of hand with lots of experimental stuff, no sensible naming or organisation conventions were used, by the time we realised it needed re-development deadlines were too tight so it's now become a problem as the developer is not around.

I'm having to manually track back through a maze of tools, it's not helped by having loads of duplicate column names in various import tools so the find function is not useful. 

The positive is using this as evidence to support spending more time on developing workflows in a sensible way even if it slows down results initially.