Article summary: The Dry run is the most critical safety feature within Speakap User Sync. it allows you to simulate the results of your data mappings and structural changes before they become effective, ensuring your network remains accurate and secure.
1. When to use a Dry run
There are two levels of Dry runs you must perform to successfully update your network:
- Within Mapping Settings: When you modify a Group mapping or Role mapping, the system performs a Dry run within that specific setting window before it will allow you to save your group mapping changes.
- On the Main User Sync Dashboard: To enable the changes to be made effective in Speakap, you must perform a (final) Dry run from the main User Sync page. This is the only way to make all your changes "effective" and push them to the live Speakap environment.
2. Understanding Dry run results
After hitting Perform dry run, the system analyzes your HR data against your current rules and presents a summary.
- Summary Tab: Provides a high-level overview of the sync health. If the simulation is successful but detects data issues, you will see a "Dry run finished with warnings!" message (as seen in screenshots). You can download the warnings to a csv for further analysis.
- Requests to Network: This tab shows exactly how many "mutations" (creates, updates, or deletes) will be sent to Speakap. If there have been no changes to your HR file or rules, this will display "There have been no changes."
- Updates Compared to Current Sync: Highlights the specific differences between the current data in Speakap and the latest imported HR data.
3. Identifying data errors and warnings
The Dry run is your best tool for identifying inconsistent data before it affects your users. Common flags include:
- Inactive Users: Users marked as false based on your Active rule in Column mapping (e.g., internal.status == "Active").
- Invalid or Missing Email: Accounts that cannot be invited because the email field is empty or formatted incorrectly.
- Missing Names: Users who cannot be created due to missing family or given names.
- Structural Gaps: Users who do not fit into any Business Unit or Group based on your current mapping expressions. These are stated with ‘Missing BU’. Reviewing these are important to make sure all your users get access to skip. If a setting does not allow to have Users without Business Units, these users will not get an account, or current users that can even lose access and get suspended.
4. Granular data inspection
For every warning or change, you can click on the Payload. This displays the raw data that would be applied to the network.
- Groups Tab: Shows a list of all groups and how many users are assigned to each. You can expand a group to see the specific members (XID, Name, Department) included.
- Users Tab: Shows a full list of synced individuals. Expanding a user profile allows you to see their assigned Groups, Emails, Addresses, and the specific Rules that placed them there.
5. Applying changes
The system will only allow you to push changes if the Dry run detects a difference between the HR source and the current Speakap state. The system is designed to prevent unintentional data mutations, and requests the user to verify and confirm the synchronization.
- Button Visibility: If no changes are detected, the "Apply" button will not appear. If changes are detected, a red Apply [X] changes button will appear.
- Verification Step: Click the Apply button. To prevent accidental clicks, a confirmation modal will appear.
- Numerical Confirmation: You must manually insert the numerical value of the changes being made (e.g., if there is 1 change, type "1") into the input field.
- Final Execution: Hit Apply changes again to finalize the process and update the live network.