Using workflow approval activities and rolling back workflows

  • Release version: Xanadu
  • Updated August 1, 2024
  • 2 minutes to read

    • When you work with approvals, you need to understand how approval activities interact with approval engines, how to correct a skipped approval workflow activity, and how rollbacks work.

    Approval workflow activities and approval engines

    Approvals can be managed by approval activities or approval engines, but not both. Approval activities can be used if approval engines are not turned on for the table associated with the workflow.

    Approvals can be managed by approval activities or approval engines, but not both. Trying to use both can cause a range of issues. Approval activites are not available (greyed out) in the palette if approval engines are used on the specified table. If you hover over a greyed out approval activity in the palette, a comment with more information is provided. For more information about approvals and approval engines, see Classic approvals.
    Figure 1. Unavailable approval activities
    Approval activities are greyed out in the palette if approval engines are used on the associated table
    To turn approval engines off for the table, navigate to the System Properties > Approval Engines and change the setting for the table to Turn engines off.
    Figure 2. Turn off approval engines
    To use approval activities, turn off approval engines for the table

    Correct a skipped workflow approval activity

    While a workflow is in an active context, an approval activity can skip to the next activity.

    Before you begin

    Role required: admin

    About this task

    An approval activity might skip for the following reasons:
    • The approval user or group is missing or invalid (for example, sys_id).
    • The approval user or group became inactive after the approval record was created.
    • The activity is a Dot-walking to data in related tables field, such as current.opened_by.department.manager, and it has a missing or invalid approval user or group.
    • The business rule on the table that is associated with the workflow is invalid.

    To correct a missed approval activity:

    Procedure

    1. Navigate to All > Workflow > Live Workflows > All Contexts.
    2. Click the date and time in the Started column for the workflow that is incorrectly processing approval activities.
    3. In Related Links, click Show Workflow.
    4. Review the portion of the workflow that executed, and then do one or more of the following:
      • Verify that after approval, the workflow progressed to the next activity. If a workflow failed to progress, check the business rules. For more information, see Debugging business rules.
      • Point to each processed approval activity to find activities where the State is Finished and Result is Skipped.
    5. Navigate to Workflow > Workflow Editor and open the workflow.
    6. Double-click the skipped approval activity.
    7. Click Users or Groups.
    8. Assign an active user or group for the approval activity. For more information, see Workflow error handling.