To include a folder in the folder statistics, select the folder in the canvas and set its "Show in statistics" property to "Yes". Whenever the flow in which the folder resides is activated, Switch will gather the appropriate statistics for jobs moving through the folder.
Folder statistics are not constrained to a single flow; Switch combines all statistics-enabled folders from all active flows in a single set of statistics. If two or more folders (residing in different flows) have the same name, the statistics for these folders are combined in a single entry. While this behavior may be confusing in some cases, it can also be used to purposefully combine the statistics for folders that serve the same function in different flows.
It is not possible to gather statistics for a folder that has no outgoing connections. This is so because the time a job spends in such a folder is not under the control of Switch.
For each job moving through a statistics-enabled folder, Switch keeps track of the job's queuing time in the folder. This is defined as the time lapse between the moment Switch detects that the job has fully arrived in the folder and the moment Switch hands the job over for processing on an outgoing connection. If there are multiple outgoing connections, a separate statistic is gathered for each connection (i.e. it is as if multiple jobs moved through the folder).
Thus the time lapse includes just the queuing time, NOT the outgoing processing time. The time lapse does include, however, any periods of time during which the job was blocked because the relevant flow was not active or Switch wasn't running.
The bar chart in the statistics pane shows the average time a job spent waiting in each folder (i.e. the average queuing delay).
To receive the most meaningful results, show statistics only for folders directly leading into heavy processes (i.e. processes forming a potential bottleneck for resources such as CPU time or communication bandwidth). Avoid including folders that serve to sort or move jobs, since the average time spent in these folders will usually be very small.