Data Flows
Data Flows draws your product pipeline as a diagram: where product data comes from, which rules it passes through inside MicroPIM, and where it goes out. It is a picture of your current configuration, so you can answer questions like “why did this product never reach my store?” without opening five settings screens.
Navigation
Section titled “Navigation”Sidebar: none. Data Flows is a view of your automations, so you reach it from there.
- Automation page > View data flow button, for the organization-wide map.
- An individual automation > View flow icon, for that one automation.
URL: /admin/flows
The two views
Section titled “The two views”| View | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Organization map | Every source, every rule, and every destination you have configured, all on one canvas. Your automations appear as the arrows between them. |
| Automation flow | A single automation as a straight left-to-right chain, showing each step that run passes through, in the order it actually happens. |
The map only shows what you have configured
Section titled “The map only shows what you have configured”This is the most important thing to know about the screen.
A box appears only when the thing behind it exists. If you have no integrations, there is no destination column at all. If you have no catalogue rules, there is no rules box. If you have never added a supplier, no supplier appears.
The map never shows greyed-out placeholders for features you have not set up, and it never suggests what you could add. So a sparse map is not a bug or a loading failure, it is an accurate picture of a small configuration. As you connect more stores and add more rules, more of the diagram fills in.
If your organization has nothing configured yet, the page shows a short setup message with links instead of an empty canvas.
Reading the map
Section titled “Reading the map”Each box is drawn in one of four ways.
| Appearance | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Solid, green | Configured, and it runs on this path. |
| Amber dashed, labelled “Not applied here” | Configured, but this particular path never runs it. A dashed line routes around it, showing where the data really goes. |
| Grey dashed | It exists, but it does not apply to this kind of run. Export automations read from your catalogue rather than writing to it, for example, so the catalogue write step is greyed on an export. |
| Red dashed | Something is missing and it is breaking an automation that is currently active. An automation with no field mappings writes nothing, and one with no destination sends nothing out. |
Red only appears for automations that are active. A paused automation that is still half configured stays quiet, so drafts in progress do not raise false alarms.
Every box links to its own settings page, so you can go straight from a step on the diagram to the screen that controls it.
Pricing rules are not applied during automations
Section titled “Pricing rules are not applied during automations”If you have pricing rules configured, the map shows them in amber as “Not applied here”. That is deliberate and it is accurate.
- Pricing rules do not run during an automation. They are a separate job that you trigger yourself from Pricing rules.
- Website markup is not applied on import either.
- Minimum margin is enforced on the way out, through your export rules, when products are sent to a destination.
Many people assume margin and pricing rules are applied to every import automatically. They are not, and a map that drew a green arrow into the pricing box would be telling you something untrue. If you want pricing rules applied to imported products, run them from the Pricing rules screen after the import.
Feed credentials are never shown
Section titled “Feed credentials are never shown”Source feed addresses are shortened to the host and path before they are displayed. API keys, tokens, and passwords that are part of a feed URL never appear on the map or in the page data.
What you can do
Section titled “What you can do”- Pan and zoom around the canvas.
- Click any box to open a side panel with its details and counts.
- Follow a link from a box or its panel to the settings page behind it.
What this screen does not do
Section titled “What this screen does not do”Data Flows is read only. It reports your configuration, it does not change it.
- You cannot drag, connect, add, or delete anything on the canvas. Edit the underlying settings instead and reload.
- It does not update live. Reload the page to pick up changes.
- It does not show per-step record counts, or trace an individual product through the pipeline.
- There is no image or PDF export.
Troubleshooting
Section titled “Troubleshooting”My map looks almost empty. That is the expected result when little is configured. Check that you have at least one automation, and at least one integration or website, then reload.
A step I configured is missing. Boxes are drawn from active records. Confirm the rule or integration is saved and enabled, not paused or in draft.
A box is red. That automation is active but incomplete. Open the box, follow its link, and supply the missing piece, usually field mappings or a destination.