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Process Inspector

Article • 22.05.2021 • 6 minute(s) to read

The Process Inspectors allows you to list, inspect and control Instances. Each Instance of any Process has a State associated to it as it executes its Activities. The Instance moves through a number of States creating a Lifecycle:

  • Started - The Instance has been created but no Activities have been completed yet. All Instances start in this Status.
  • In Progress - At least one Activity is completed but there are one or more Activities still to be executed in this Instance.
  • Running - Collective State for Started and In Progress.
  • Closed - The Instance has reached the End Activity. This is the default end of the Lifecycle. If the Process History is disable, the Instance will be deleted, once Closed is reached. If the Process History is enabled the Instance will be kept until it is deleted manually. The Process History setting is enabled or disabled by the Disable process history setting in the Process Properties.
  • Canceled - The execution was canceled by a User with the required rights. Canceled Instances can be deleted when they are not needed anymore, or they can be restarted to resume to the Activity active before the Instance was canceled.
  • Faulted - The execution of the Instance failed in one particular Activity due to an Error or Exception. Faulted Processes can be canceled so that they change their status to Canceled. It is also possible to retry the execution of the Activity that failed. This is called Retrigger and changes the Status from Faulted to In Progress.

For Processes that are configured to have only one Instance per Version In Progress at the same time, this condition in enforced whenever you try to create a new Instance, or change the State of an Instance from Faulted or Canceled into In Progress.

  • If you try to create a new Instance and another Instance is already In Progress, no new Instance will be created.
  • If you try to restart or retrigger an Instance and another Instance is already In Progress, no state change will be executed.
Each Instance moves through a Lifecycle always starting in Started and ending either in Canceled or Closed.

Process Instance Lifecycle

Each Instance moves through a Lifecycle always starting in Started and ending either in Canceled or Closed.

The Process Inspector lists all Instance in the Subscription that have not been deleted, regardless of their State. Instances can either be deleted manually here in the Process Inspector, or are automatically depleted once they reached the Closed State and the Process History is disabled in the Process Properties.

Sections of the Process Inspector

Filter

This menu holds three options to select the Instances you are looking for:

  • Filter Drop-Down - This allows you to filter the Instance List for Instances in a specific State or for debugging Instances:
    • Canceled - Show only Instances in State Canceled.
    • Closed - Show only Instances in State Closed.
    • Faulted - Show only Instances in State Faulted.
    • Running - Show only Instances that are either in State Started or In Progress.
    • Debug - Show only debugging Instances in any State.
  • Search by name - Lets you filter the Instances by the name of the Process. This filter is applied in addition to the Filter Drop-Down. The Process name must be an exact match to the search string, but the capitalization is ignored. Hence, test and TEST would both match a Process name Test, but Tes would not.
  • Find by id - This button opens an input box where you can enter the Id of of an Instance directly and show the Process Details. The Process Details are also available via and Show details in the Instance List.
  • Delete all - If the filter is set to Canceled or Debug, this button will appear to delete all Instances shown in the Instance List. If the Instance List is paginated, all Instances over all pages will be deleted.
Instance List

The Instance List shows all Instances that fulfilled the Filter criteria. Several properties of each instance are shown and offer the possibility to interact with the Instances:

  • The first column shows the Instance Id over the name of the Process. The Instance Id is indicated by a leading # not part of the actual Id.
  • Last Outcome - The last Activity Outcome the Instance has passed.
  • STATUS - State of the Instance
  • CREATED - When the Instance was created
  • MODIFIED - When the Instance was last modified
  • By clicking on at the right end of each entry in the Instance List, you get several options to interact with the Instance. The option Show Details is always offered, but additional options are available depending on the state of the Instance:
Pagination
You can navigate through the pages of the Instance List by clicking on the numbers on the right. You can select the number of Instances per page with the drop down on the left.

Upgrade Instances

The Process Inspector offers the functionality to upgrade Instances from their Version to the currently deployed Version of a Process. The Novunex Platform does this by creating a new Instance of the deployed Version, applying the Context of the old Instance to the new Instance and setting the current Activity in the new Instance to the same as in the old Instance. Obviously, if there have been changes in the structure of the Process or to the Entity Types, the old Context in the new Process will cause unexpected results or let the new Instance fail. Hence, it is generally discouraged to use the upgrade functionality. I you decide to use the upgrade functionality anyway, you have to use it with care and preferably when the changes only effect parts of the Process after the current Activity.

The Novunex Platform will execute an upgrade in any case and the original Instance will be lost, no matter if the upgraded Instance is working or not.

Process Details

The Process Details give you a detailed overview of an Instance and its execution. The Process Details can be opened by clicking on and then Show Details in the Instance Lists, or by clicking on Find by id in the Filter area and entering an Instance Id.

Process info

This section show you various details of the Instance:

  • Id - Number of the Instance, unique for a Process
  • Process Version - Version of the Process this Instance belongs to
  • Current Activities - The currently active Activities in the Instance
  • Parent Process Instance Id - Number of the Instance that started this Instance with a Connect Activity. This field is empty, if the Instance was started directly by a User.
  • From Parent Activity Id - If the Instance was started by another Process via a Connect Activity, the Id of said Connect Activity is shown here. This field is empty, if the Instance was started directly by a User.
  • Activity History - Lists the Activities that have been completed by the Instance
  • Faults - If the Instance in the faulted state, log information about the Fault are shown here. This filed is empty, if no faults occurred.
Context
This Section shows you the Variables and Start Parameters of the Instance.

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