Since I first used Azure Data Factory, I looked for the 'disable' option on an activity, and it wasn't there! I quickly went to the ideas page, and someone had already placed a suggestion. There are over 1,900 upvotes, and the suggestion was created five years ago!
Well, guess what? It's finally here! You can disable an activity in an Azure Data Factory Pipeline! In Preview, anyway.
Right mouse click on an activity, then select 'Deactivate (preview)'.
Once you Deactivate an activity, it turns a darker gray (if you aren't in dark mode),
Here is what it looks like in Dark Mode. If you notice, a little icon is added at the top of each deactivated activity.
The icon also appears in normal mode, as highlighted in the image below.
To activate an activity again, right mouse click on the disabled activity and select 'Activate (preview)'.
Now you can run your pipeline in 'debug' mode, and it will skip over the deactivated steps. Here is how the output looks during execution. You can see the 'Inactive' steps.
If you publish your pipeline with those activities deactivated, they will be deactivated when the pipeline is triggered. Those steps will be skipped. If you set or use any information from those deactivated steps, other areas of your pipeline may fail, so keep that in mind.
Once a pipeline is triggered, it will mark the Inactive step as 'successful' so it will continue to the next step. Here is the output and view of a triggered pipeline with deactivated activities.
Now, to use this new preview feature you will need to enable the 'Preview experience'. At the top right of Azure Data Factory, you will see an option to turn it on.
A pop-up will show up, then click 'Apply'.
Then the 'Preview experience' will be 'on'.
I hope you will enjoy this long awaited feature as much as I will!