Testing Your Connector Inside of a Flow
There are three stages of Connector versions management- saving, submission and deployment.
The first step is “Saving”. Saving will overwrite the existing “DRAFT” version, which exists outside of the Semantic Versioning system our Connectors use. There is only one universal “DRAFT” for all Connector developers in an organization. Currently there is little protection of this “DRAFT” version from being overwritten, so take precautions when sharing a Connector during its development phase.
When you save a Connector, it does not need to compile to successfully be stored for later development. To save, either push the “Save” button in the toolbar or use Command/Control + S.
The next stage is “submission”. At this stage, you are saving the “DRAFT” as an actual Semantic Version of your Connector. For more information about this, see “Semantic Versioning”.
At this stage, the version is getting saved specifically into our system, so it must compile. You cannot submit a Connector with compilation errors inside of its “Core” sections.
Compilation at this stage and during the saving stage does not check for UI compilation errors. To Submit, push the “Submit” button.
After this, you may choose to deploy your Connector. Deployment means that a Connector version will be exposed in Designer for your organization. To go to the deployment panel, choose the “Control Panel” menu item in the top menu of the connector builder.
Here you will see that there are two types of deployment:
- “Test” Connectors
- “Production” Connectors
“Test” Connectors are versions of a Connector that are deployed specifically for testing purposes. Deploying a new version of a “Test Connector” will not impact the “Production Connector” or any of the Flows that use the “Production” version of your Connector- meaning you can test safely with the knowledge that no Flows that non-developers are using would be impacted. “Test” Connectors may be removed from Designer, and are hidden by default by users who have not opted into Connector development tools.
“Production” Connectors are versions of a Connector that are intended to be “safe” to build Flows on top of in your organization. This means that these Connectors are only upgraded to a new version when extensive testing has occurred on that version with a “Test” Connector.
You may have a “Test” version of a Connector deployed and “Production” version of the same Connector deployed at the same time. However, they may not be the same version of the Connector.
The responsibility for maintaining that relationship between “Test” Connectors and “Production” Connectors is on organization administrators. The only checks that occur inside the system to ensure Flow safety during Connector development are:
- You cannot set a “Test Connector” version to be the existing “Production Connector” version
- If you set a “Production Connector” version to be the current “Test Connector” version, you will get a warning that it will be replaced.
- Members may not change the “Production Connector” version
Once you know which type of deployment you want to do and what version you want to deploy, select the right version on the dropdown for your desired Connector, and select the deployment button on the bottom right. Your Connector should be updated in Designer shortly.