iWay Functional Language (iFL) provides the _now('Un') function, which is used to record time. The pattern 'Un' causes the value of the best available timer to be recorded. The time recorded is not absolute, and cannot necessarily be related to any external time. Instead, all that is guaranteed are the time increments and the best available timer.

A frequent use of this function is in the preamble and postamble of the process flow node. You might use the preamble of the first node of a sequence and the postamble of the last node of the sequence to measure several nodes together. Normally, these opportunities are used to set registers. By setting a preamble register, such as start to _now('Un') and a postamble register, such as totaltime to _sub(_now('Un'), _sreg(start)), the registered total time will hold the measured time duration across the node. You might emit this time using the Trace Message Writer Service (com.ibi.agents.XDTraceAgent), write it using a File emitter, or even include it in an output document.