How to unlock a 'stuck' action

Summary

WorkflowGen has a built-in tool that enables you to unlock “Automatic actions in timeout”. By unlocking an action, WorkflowGen will create a timeout error and move the flow forward to a manual exception action (Best Practice). From there, the assigned user can close the manual action thus relaunching the system action.

To do this, launch the following URLs:

  1. http://yourserver/wfgen/show.aspx?QUERY=CHECK_AUTO_ACTIVITIES_TIMEOUT&DEBUG=Y

    This will display a list of current stuck actions.

  2. http://yourserver/wfgen/show.aspx?QUERY=CHECK_AUTO_ACTIVITIES_TIMEOUT&DEBUG=N

    This will unlock those actions with a timeout error.

Definitions

“Automatic actions in timeout”

Open request with a system action that is open/running and has never closed itself.

Possible cause:

The system action has timed out and never returned an error to WorkflowGen therefore according to WorkflowGen, the system action is still running.

Solution:

Action can be unlocked by the CHECK_AUTO_ACTIVITIES_TIMEOUT tool.

"Stuck requests":

Open requests without any open actions to do.

Possible cause:

Usually due to bad design of the process where not all flow/business cases are defined and managed.

Solution:

Requests need to be cancelled and relaunched.