The Abort and Start functionality aborts an existing process instance and starts another process. The data associated with aborted process is passed by copy to the newly started process. The newly started process is not coupled at all with the originating (aborted) process regarding its life-cycle. The newly created process contains a link to the originating one and vice-versa. Target process definitions can be all startable processes from all active models you are authorized to start, including a new instance of the originally running process definition itself.
Consider a scenario of an organization that has implemented Stardust Portal workflows to manage several of its mission critical business processes, most of which are document-centric. After using the system for several months, the company notices that approximately 4% of the process instances are started in the incorrect process definition, mostly due to user error. When this occurs, an operator downloads the documents referenced to the process instance, aborts it, starts a process instance in the correct process definition, and manually uploads the documents to the newly started process instance. This is quite time-consuming, and there is no link to show any relationship between the two process instances.
With the abort and start option, these steps are performed in one functionality.
Assuming a company has a business process A, and active transactional jobs, process instances, exist with that process:
For details on relocation, refer to chapter Relocation of Activities.
For example usage, please refer to the tutorial Aborting and Starting Processes of the Developers Handbook.
Aborting and starting a process is performed in the following sequence:
The newly started process is linked to the originating one. The link is an additional property of a process instance but does not influence the process hierarchy. API is provided to retrieve the linking information from an existing process instance. Refer to chapter Workflow Processing to Abort and Start Subprocess in the Programming Guide for details.
The links are established from the root process instance of the source process instance to the newly created process instance. They are established between root processes, even if the source and target process instances are not root process instances.
The links created for each process instance have the following Link Types depending on the source process instance or target process instance:
Switched ToSwitched FromIn case the target process is another instance of the source process, the following Link Types are created:
Migrated ToMigrated FromThe aborting action in the Stardust portal provides the option to abort and start a process. The process to be started can be selected along with a linking comment. For details refer to chapter Aborting a Process and Starting a new Instance of the Stardust Portal in the End User Handbook.
Linked processes can be viewed in the Process Details view of the process instance. Refer to chapter Linked Processes of the Stardust Portal in the End User Handbook for details.