Every row in a flow can be traced back to exactly where it came from. Pick a specific row, and Prowork lights up its whole path across the canvas (every source row that fed into it, every row it became) without opening each step by hand.
It’s the fastest way to answer the question every flow builder eventually asks: where did this come from, and what happened to it along the way?
When to use it
Reach for data tracing whenever you need to understand or debug a specific row:
- A value looks wrong. Trace it back to the source rows that produced it, and see where the number went sideways.
- A row is missing. Trace a related row to see where it got filtered, joined away, or transformed out.
- You’re learning a flow someone else built. Trace a row end to end and watch the data actually move, step by step.
- A chart point looks off. Trace a mark in a visualization back to the exact rows behind it.
Start a trace
You can start a trace from anywhere you can see a row:
- From a step on the canvas - Click the search icon on any step to show data, then click on any row to start tracing.
- By clicking a visualization - Click a bar or point directly on a visualization to trace that data.
- From a step’s results - Open a step’s full results, double click a cell, and choose Trace this row.
That’s it! The trace starts immediately and the canvas updates to show you the row’s lineage.
Follow the trace
Once a trace is active, your selected row is highlighted, related rows light up in every connected step, and steps your row never reaches are dimmed, so the path your data actually took stands out. Each step shows only the related rows by default. Toggle show all to see one in context of its full table.
Click any highlighted row in another step to re-root the trace there. Keep clicking to walk the chain (backward toward the source, forward toward the output) until you land on the step where the value actually changes.
Stop a trace
To exit trace mode, do any of the following:
- Click Stop tracing in the banner.
- Press Esc.
- Click the Stop tracing button on the step you started the trace on.
Trace mode is temporary! It also clears on its own when you leave the flow.
Troubleshooting
A trace can come back empty or broken, which can provide some useful signals.
- “Trace unsuccessful.” Prowork couldn’t connect your row to rows in that step, so the lineage breaks at that point. This points to exactly where a row’s connection to its source is lost.
- “No related rows.” Your traced row genuinely doesn’t have related rows in that step, for example because it was filtered out before reaching it. That’s expected, and itself a clue about what happened to the row.
- “Couldn’t trace this row. Please try again.” The trace was too large to complete, usually because a step (like a large join) fans the row out into an enormous number of related rows. Try tracing a more specific row, or trace from a step further along in the flow.
Last modified on August 28, 2026
