Object Operations in Flow Config

The operations#

The ones whose names mislead#

Three commands do something other than what the word suggests.

Task means "open in the browser"#

Task has nothing to do with scheduling or job queues. On a chart, dashboard or dashboard loop it opens that object in the Infohub web client, or copies a direct link to it. On a Deployment object it does the same for a running Server, opening its API root.

The links it copies follow the client's own URL shape:

<server-url>charts/<chart-id>
<server-url>dashboards/<dashboard-id>
<server-url>dashboard-loops/<dashboard-loop-id>

That is the supported way to get a link to a specific chart for an email, a wiki page or an embedded frame — rather than copying whatever is in the address bar after clicking around.

On a Deployment object, Task is only enabled while the parent Server is actually running. Greyed out means the Server is not up.

Deploy to means "hand this to a different engine"#

Deploy to… does not deploy in the sense of applying configuration — that is Change deployment state. It moves a metric, event scheme or metric folder to a different Data Engine, and the picker lists every engine except the one that currently owns it.

This is how a large model is divided across engines. Content assigned to no engine is never processed at all, which is the usual explanation for one area of a model being silent while the rest works — see Running the Data Engine.

Serialize is not quite Export#

Both write objects to a file, and they do not cover the same objects:

A single measure can be serialized but not exported. If you are trying to move one measure between instances and cannot find Export, that is why — serialize it, or export its parent metric.

See Importing and Exporting Models for choosing between the two.

Merging duplicate measures#

Models acquire duplicates. The usual way is templates arriving late: measures were built by hand first, a template is introduced afterwards, and now each line has both its original measure and the template-linked one measuring the same thing.

Deleting the original is the right answer and the tedious one, because it is referenced by charts, calculations and limits that all have to be repointed first. Infohub can do that repointing for you.

Hold Shift and drag the duplicate onto the measure you are keeping. Infohub moves the references across and removes the duplicate.

Check the result before moving on. Merging repoints references, so a chart that was reading the duplicate now reads the keeper — which is the intent, but it is worth confirming on one chart before doing it forty times.

Restricted objects#

An object can be restricted, and a restricted object refuses Serialize, Export, Backfill, Delete, Update from template and Delink. The commands are disabled rather than failing with an explanation, so an object where several commands are simultaneously unavailable is usually restricted rather than broken.

Restriction is a permissions mechanism, and it is decided at the metric folder:

• An administrator is never restricted.
• If the folder has groups assigned, you are restricted unless you are a member of one of them.
• If the folder has no groups assigned, nobody is restricted — an unsecured folder is open to everyone.

That last rule is worth dwelling on: permissions are opt-in per folder. A folder nobody has secured is not protected by the security applied to its siblings.

Restriction then cascades down the tree from the folder that defines it:

Metric folder          < the only place restriction is decided
+-- Metric             < inherits from its folder
|   +-- Measure        < inherits from its metric
+-- Event scheme       < inherits from its folder
    +-- Event attribute < inherits from its event scheme

So you cannot grant access to a single measure inside a restricted folder, and you cannot restrict one measure inside an open one. The folder is the unit of access control — which is a reason to let permissions influence folder structure, not only reporting tidiness. See Users, Groups and Access and Folder Structure Best Practices.

Why a command is greyed out#

Diagnosing#

See also#

• A Tour of Flow Config
• The Toolbox
• Deploying Configuration
• Templates: Instantiating and Updating