Workflow administration

You can administer workflow in any of the following ways:

  • Through the PolicyCenterAdministration > Workflows page
  • Through the command line, such as running a batch process to purge the workflow logs
  • Through class gw.webservice.workflow.IWorkflowAPI, which the command line uses

The most likely need for using the PolicyCenterAdministration interface is error handling. Errors can include the following:

  • A few workflows fail
  • In a worst case scenario, thousands of workflows fail simultaneously

Finding workflows that have not failed but have been idling for an extremely long time is also likely. A secondary use is just looking at all the current running flows to see how they work. Guidewire therefore organizes the Administration interface for workflow around a search screen for searching for workflow instances. You can filter the search screen, for example, by instance type, state (especially Error state), work item, last modified time, and similar criteria.

A user with administrative permissions can search for workflows from the Administration > Workflows page. However, to actually manage workflows, that user must have the workflowmanage permission.

With the correct permission, you can do the following from the Administration > Workflows page:

  • Search for a specific workflow or see a list of all workflows:
  • Look at an individual workflow details, for example:
    • View its log and current step and action
    • View any open activities on the workflow
  • Actively manage a workflow

Manage workflow

If you have the workflowmanage permission, PolicyCenter enables the following choices on the Find Workflows page:

  • Manage selected workflows (active after you select one or more workflows)
  • Manage all workflows (active at all times with the correct permission)

Choosing one of these options opens the Manage Workflows page. This page presents a choice of workflow and step appropriate commands that you can execute. It is only possible to select one command (radio button) at a time. Choosing either Invoke Trigger or Timeout Branch provides further selection choices.

Command

Description

Wait - max time (secs)

Select and enter a time to force the workflow to wait until either that amount of time has expired or the currently active work item is no longer active. (The work item has failed or has succeeded and has been deleted.)

This option is only available if there is a currently available work item on this workflow.

Invoke Trigger

Select to chose a workflow trigger to invoke. After selecting this command, PolicyCenter presents a list of available triggers from which to choose, if any are available on this workflow.

Suspend

Select to suspend any active workflows that are currently selected in the previous screen. After you execute this command, PolicyCenter suspends the selected workflows. This action is appropriate for all workflow and steps. However, PolicyCenter executes this command only against active workflows.

Resume

Select to resume workflow execution of any suspended workflows that are currently selected in the previous screen. This action is appropriate for all workflows and steps.

Timeout branch

Select to choose a workflow timeout branch. After selecting this command, PolicyCenter presents a list of timeout branches from which to choose, if any are available on this workflow.

After you make your selection and add any relevant parameters, clicking Execute immediately executes that command. Using these commands, you can:

  • Restore workflows from the Error or Suspended state back to the Active state. However, if you have not corrected the underlying error, presumably a scripting error, the workflow might drop right back into Error mode.
  • Force a waiting workflow to execute:
    • By setting the specific timeout branch
    • By setting a specific trigger
  • Force an active workflow to wait for a specified amount of time

Workflow Statistics tab

PolicyCenter collects workflow statistics periodically and captures the elapse and execution time for individual workflow types and steps. You can search by workflow type and date range.

Workflow and server tools

Those with access to the Server Tools, can also access the following:

Batch Process Info

Use to view information on the last run-time of a writer, and to see the schedule for its next run-time. From this page, you also have the ability to stop and start the scheduling of the writer.

Work Queue Info

Use to view information on a writer, what items it picked up and the workers. From this page, you also have the ability to notify, start and stop workers across the cluster.