Administering Workflow Instances

The workflow console provides several tools for administering workflow instances to ensure that they are executing as expected.

A range of consoles are available for administering your workflows. Use the global navigation to open the Tools pane, then select Workflow:

• Models: Manage workflow definitions
• Instances: View and manage running workflow instances
• Launchers: Manage how workflows are to be launched
• Archive: View history of workflows that completed successfully
• Failures: View history of workflows that completed with errors

When a workflow fails, AEM provides the Failures console to allow you to investigate and take appropriate action once the original cause has been handled:

• Failure Details
  Opens a window to show the Failure Message, Step and Failure Stack.
• Open History
  Shows details of the workflow history.
• Retry Step
  Executes the Script Step component instance again. Use the Retry Step command after you have fixed the cause of the original errror. For example, retry the step after you fix a bug in the script that the Process Step executes.
• Terminate
  Terminate the workflow if the error has caused an irreconsilable situation for the workflow. For example, the workflow can rely on environmental conditions such as information in the respository that are no longer valid for the workflow intance.
• Terminate and Retry
  Similar to Terminate except that a new workflow instance is started using the original payload, title, and description.

To investigate failures, then resume or terminate the workflow afterwards, use the following steps:

Open the workflow console using the Workflows link on the AEM Welcome page (Classic UI), and the Tools section of the touch-optimized UI.

Within the console are several tabs:

• Models
  Lists the workflow models currently available. Here you can start, create, edit or delete workflow models.
• Instances
  Shows you details of workflow instances which are currently active. These instances are also version dependent.
• Archive
  Enables you to access details of workflow instances which have terminated, for whatever reason.
• Launcher
  Allows you to define a workflow to be launched if a specific node has been updated.
• Failures
  Enables you to monitor and manage failed worklow instances.

To monitor the status of workflow instances, you can use the Instances or Archive tabs.

• Instances: Shows all running instances.
• Archive: Shows terminated workflow instances. 

From the Instances tab you can see the status of a Workflow in progress. A list of the active Models is shown; in this case RUNNING:

Select an instance and click Open History to show the actions executed to date on the workflow instance:

You can also use the JMX console to see a list of running and completed workflows.

Perform actions on running workflow instances when you need to intervene in the normal progression of a workflow instance:

The Instances tab is not only useful for taking action on running workflows, you can also use it to monitor workflow instances, without necessarily modifying them.

Workflow instances appear on the Failures tab of the Workflows console when the execution of a Process Step component results in errors. The Failures tab enables you to investigate the cause of the errors, and provides options for resuming execution when the causes are fixed:

You can use the JMX console to terminate and retry workflows as a bulk operation.

After a Workflow instance has finished, for example after being terminated or after successful completion, it can (only) be seen in the Archive tab:

As the workflow has already completed, no further action can be taken on these instances. However, if you need further details of a completed workflow you can use Open History.

You can use the JMX console to purge the repository of completed workflows or schedule regular purging. If the list of archived workflows grows too large, purge those that are of a certain age to speed page loading.

Minimizing the number of workflow instances increases the performance of the workflow engine, so you can regularly purge completed or running workflow instances from the repository. 

Configure Adobe Granite Workflow Purge Configuration to purge workflow instances according their age and status. You can also purge workflow instances of all models or of a specific model.

You can also create multiple configurations of the service to purge workflow instances that satisfy different criteria. For example, create a configuration that purges the instances of a particular workflow model when they are running for much longer than the expected time. Create another configuration that purges all completed workflows after a certain number of days to minimize the size of the repository.

To configure the service, you can use the Web Console or add an OSGi configuration to the repository. The following table desribes the properties that you need for either method. 

You can set the maximum size of the inbox by configuring the Adobe Granite Workflow Service, using the Web Console or add an OSGi configuration to the repository. The following table describes the property that you configure for either method.