About Step Failure Behavior

When a step in a process instance fails, Software AG Designer provides you with the ability to define an error handling step for the process. For more information, see Handling Process and Step Errors.

Errors (sometimes referred to as exceptions), such as a step failure, can be processed by an error handling step configured with your own custom logic, which can enable the running process to recover from the error and continue execution to a successful completion.

In a process without any error handling, the failure of a step generally results in the failure of the process. You can troubleshoot a failed process using webMethods Monitor, which also enables you to make changes to the process instance pipeline, and to resubmit the process instance from a failed step or from any other resubmit-enabled step in the process. For more information, see Enabling a Step for Resubmission. For a fuller description of step and process resubmission, see the “Process Monitoring” chapter in the webMethods Monitor User’s Guide.

In Process Engine version 9.7 and later, when a step fails with no error handling in place, the process instance continues to execute until it reaches a logical conclusion, at which point the process instance is given a status of Failed. For example, if a process model has two or more processing tracks, even though a step in one track fails, the remaining tracks continue executing to a logical conclusion. This greatly improves the results when the failed process is resubmitted.

In versions earlier than 9.7, when a step fails with no error handling, the process instance stops processing immediately, and the process is given a status of Failed. Any parallel tracks are halted after the completion of the currently executing step, and these tracks do not run to a logical conclusion. This makes resubmission more difficult.

If you are migrating process models from earlier versions to version 9.7 or later, this change in unhandled error processing may have an impact on the behavior of your imported models. It is possible to revert to the pre-9.7 behavior on a process-by-process basis by applying the Enable deprecated error handling behavior option. However, this option is deprecated and is not recommended due to its negative impact on resubmission. You are advised to modify your process model as required to avoid using it. For more information, see Advanced Process Properties.