Enabling playbook restart
Summarize
Summary of Enabling playbook restart
Playbook restart in ServiceNow's Playbook Experience allows agents and fulfillers to restart a playbook either from the beginning or from a specific stage or activity during runtime. This feature is controlled through configurable restart rules applied to each stage and activity, enhancing flexibility in handling playbook executions.
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Restart is automatically enabled for new playbooks, while administrators must manually enable it for existing playbooks. Once enabled, restart cannot be disabled.
Key Features
- Restart Rules: Define behavior of stages and activities during restarts with three options:
- Skip on restart: Runs only during the initial execution; skipped on restart to avoid duplicating tasks or records.
- Run always: Runs both during initial execution and on restarts.
- Skip on first run: Runs only during restarted executions; skipped during the first run.
- Restart States: Playbooks can be restarted only when in an active "In Progress" state. Stages and activities can be restarted only when in a complete or error state. Playbooks in terminal states (Complete, Error, Cancelled) cannot be restarted.
- Design Considerations:
- Avoid setting the last stage or activity to "Skip on first run" if no parallel stages or activities exist, to ensure the last steps execute on restarts.
- Avoid grouping all "Skip on first run" activities in a single stage to prevent the stage from being hidden during the first run.
Key Outcomes
By enabling and properly configuring playbook restarts, ServiceNow customers can:
- Allow seamless resumption of playbooks from any point, improving operational flexibility.
- Control which stages and activities execute during restarts, preventing redundant task creation.
- Ensure playbooks and their components behave predictably when restarted, maintaining workflow integrity.
Learn how playbook restart during runtime works and how restart rules control the behavior of stages and activities during a restarted run.
Playbook restart lets agents and fulfillers in Playbook Experience restart a playbook from the beginning, or from a specific stage or activity. Playbooks administrators enable restart in Workflow Studio and define restart rules for each stage and activity.
Restart is automatically enabled for new playbooks. For existing playbooks, an administrator must enable restart manually. Once enabled, restart cannot be disabled.
Restart rules
When you configure restart for a stage or activity, you define what it does when a playbook is restarted. The following rules are available:
| Rule | Description |
|---|---|
| Skip on restart | The stage or activity runs only during the initial run. It does not run when the playbook is restarted. Use this rule when you don't want new tasks or records to be created during a restarted run, because the original execution and its resulting record are still relevant. |
| Run always | The stage or activity runs during both the initial run and any restarted run. |
| Skip on first run | The stage or activity runs only during a restarted run. It never runs during the initial run. |
Restart states
The state of a playbook, stage, or activity determines whether it can be restarted.
A playbook can only be restarted when it is in an active state. The only active state is In Progress. Playbooks in a terminal state — Complete, Error, or Cancelled — cannot be restarted.
The opposite is true for stages and activities. A stage or activity can only be restarted when it is in a complete or error state.
Design considerations
- Last stages and activities
- Avoid setting the last stage or activity of a playbook to Skip on first run if there are no parallel stages or activities. If the playbook is restarted before the last stage or activity can run, the last stage or activity never runs.
- Stages
- Avoid grouping all activities that are configured to Skip on first run in one (1) stage. If you do so, the stage is completely hidden the first time that it runs. The stage must run twice to become visible.