Question

Pending instances of forms

Laserfiche Forms Version 10

Updated March 8, 2018

asked on September 22, 2017 • Show version history

I have several forms that show as pending instances that haven't completed yet. This business process has a timer event at the end where it waits until the allotted time has passed (30, 60, 90 days) to send email to network administrator to remove email monitoring. For two of the six showing as pending, I know that the email monitoring was set to 0 which then bypasses the time event in the business process.

How can I see where all of these business processes are sitting when the dashboard doesn't show any tasks or steps?

How can I push those instances that are complete to a final completion?

9-22-17 in progress.PNG (61.47 KB)

| Download

9-22-17 in progress2.PNG (13.22 KB)

| Download

1 0

Answer

APPROVED ANSWER

replied on September 27, 2017

Hey,

Sorry for the confusion.

The issue you have is that when the process was updated there were still tasks in this area:

The reason that is a problem is they never went down the new path with the Network Tech Remove task and therefore no matter what you do they cant meet the requirement to continue on from the parallel gateway join. The solution I tried to explain yesterday was to terminate the new path until all old instances have completed. e.g

Above is a very rough mock-up of your process, by terminating the new path rather then joining to the gateway your process would allow all your old paths to continue and still allow the new ones to follow the new path and create the necessary tasks until you are ready to re-join them to the gateway.

Ending the path on a end event wont terminate the instance as a whole just that path. Basically it should run like this:

Hope that makes more sense.

0 0

Replies

replied on September 25, 2017

So the way parallel gateways work is they wait for all paths to return a value before they will continue. because you have an exclusive gateway that splits into 2 paths that meet at a parallel gateway one of those paths will never return and therefore the gateway will never move on.

Luckily the solution is easy. Just re-join the path before it reaches the parallel gateway. add in a exclusive gateway with the 2 paths from the 'generic login removal' gateway as inflow and a single outflow into the parallel gateway.

If you do that all paths will return to the parallel gateway allowing your process to continue.

1 0

View 2 previous replies

replied on September 26, 2017 • Show version history

Aaron, I realized the same when I went back to look at how I handled it in the upper part of my business process. I appreciate your response and recommendation!

My concern now, is if I add that to the currently running business process, whether it will allow those to go to completion.

Looking for your or Laserfiche's thoughts on that being a solution to getting these BPs to run their course.

UPDATE:

Made the change to the business process to add the Exclusive gateway before the parallel gateway and it did not allow the instances to go to completion. Looking for a way to get these to terminate successfully so that I can get the completed action history and second version of the form without having to stop the instance.

0 0

replied on September 26, 2017

Ok so to clarify this is an existing process with running instances?

That does complicate things a little. I don't think there is a clean way to do this kind of cut over. Probably what I would do is have the generic login path terminate for a while then when all remaining instances are using that path re-join it in.

Its not a perfect solution but at the moment I cant think of another option.

0 0

replied on September 27, 2017

Aaron, Yes, these are running instances. I'm not sure what you are referring to when you said

"have the generic login path terminate for a while then when all remaining instances are using that path re-join it in"

All of the running instances now have that change to add the exclusive gateway to the generic login path. Not sure what you meant by re-join it in.

0 0

APPROVED ANSWER

replied on September 27, 2017

Hey,

Sorry for the confusion.

The issue you have is that when the process was updated there were still tasks in this area:

Ending the path on a end event wont terminate the instance as a whole just that path. Basically it should run like this:

Hope that makes more sense.

0 0

replied on September 28, 2017 • Show version history

Definitely made more sense! Thanks Aaron.

Downside here is that each of the user tasks circled, as well as the Generic Login Removal gateway show as completed.

I can match each task back to a 'Process Remove Complete' occurrence of the parallel gateway in the monitoring detail.

So even if I do change the exclusive gateway for the Generic Login Removal to have it's own end event (which I did), the instances still remain running.

I appreciate your assistance but I think I am in situation where the only way to get these instances to close would be to Stop them from running. Again, thank you for your help on this issue.

0 0

replied on September 22, 2017

Does it show you more if you click on a specific instance and open it?

0 0

replied on September 22, 2017 • Show version history

Clicking on a single instance shows me each of the completed steps and stops at my Process Complete gateway. This gateway is end of all user tasks that feed the final tasks where it evaluates the email monitoring period and either waits the appropriate time or continues, saves form to repository, and ends.

There are interrupted tasks within the instances because I have users who get reminders to complete their tasks every few days. Other than that, there is really nothing else to give me a clue as to where things are hung up or that it's waiting on a timer event.

0 0

replied on September 24, 2017

I have a theory as to why this is happening but to be sure can you post your workflow?

If you used a parallel gateway as your final gateway you would see the behaviour your describing.

0 0

replied on September 25, 2017 • Show version history

I've been using the process with the parallel gateway for several months, but just added the exclusive gateway within it a few weeks ago. I have a similar setup in the New/Change portion of this business process which has been working. The difference here is that there was a longer wait for the exclusive gateway to finish within the parallel gateway. What I'm not seeing is any of the tasks following the gateway as complete or still in progress.

How do I complete the business process without stopping it?

9-25-17 in progress3.PNG (56.11 KB)

| Download

0 0

replied on September 27, 2017

Anyone from Laserfiche have thoughts on how to address these running instances? Looking for some alternatives to just terminating the instances since I would like to keep the process information contained in them.

0 0

replied on March 8, 2018

Did you find an answer? I now have a similar situation with my process saying "In Progress" even though all the steps have finished. The only thing I did was add a timer for a reminder and this one that is hung up is the one that I tested allowing the timer to run through every five minutes for four times, then I completed the step the reminder was about and all further steps finished as expected. I suspect the process is hung up because of the timer.

0 0

You are not allowed to follow up in this post.

Question

Question

Pending instances of forms

Answer

Replies

Sign in to reply to this post.