Admin user cannot checkout a workflow

[HugoFirst]

I have a workflow which has been published and I need to change it.

So I open it up, I can see the workflow and I see the gear icon.

I click the gear icon and I see the following options:

New Workflow

Open Existing

Copy

Delete

Set Inactive

Expand Transitions

Validate Workflow

Properties

Edit Stages

Edit Catalog Variables

Notice that there is no option to "Checkout".

Other information:

1. The workflow in question shows "Published" in the header line.

2. The admin user can open other workflows and see the option to Checkout.

3. The build tag for our instance is glide-eureka-04-08-2014__patch10-03-25-2015

Why is this happening?   And more importantly, how can I change the workflow?

[Brad Tilton · Accepted solution]

Is there a checked out version of this workflow somewhere? If someone else has it checked out you won't be able to open the published version.

[HugoFirst]

Thank you for the quick response Brad!

There is no other copy of the workflow, and there are only 2 of us who can edit workflows.

Neither of us is working on it, and neither of us can check it out.   Sigh...

One more piece of information though, the workflow was recently renamed.

Would that cause the problem?

Do you know which business rule or UI action governs the appearance of the "Checkout" option in the gear icon?

[HugoFirst]

OK, I looked deeper and Brad, I'm giving your answer the "Ding Ding Ding" correct answer award.

There was a version checked out by someone else, but it didn't appear in the list of workflow versions when I clicked 'Open" in the workflow editor.   Not even when I removed the filters to show all!

But I did enter wf_workflow_version.list in the left navigation pane filter to get a full list of workflow versions.

I found more than one version of this workflow and one was checked out, by a non-itil licensed user.

I deleted the version in questions and, "Voila!" the Checkout option appeared in the Gear's menu.

Now you might ask how a non-itil licensed user was able to checkout a workflow?   This particular person couldn't even open a workflow to view.   So we surmise that we had the workflow open, and then were interrupted and had to impersonate the non-itil licensed person for a few minutes.   When we completed that task, we must have forgot to to return to our admin identity and checked out the workflow.   Later on, once we returned to our admin identify, the workflow appears to be locked from editing, but with no other version appearing in the list.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

In any case, Brad, you were right on the money and you're thoughts put me on the correct path.   Thank you!

[roger-emc]

I had a same problem and found out that I was impersonating someone when I checked it out.   I don't think the person I was impersonating had admin either.