Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide > About Workflow Process Design Options > About the Workflow Mode Property >

Using Workflow Persistence

Workflow persistence is a feature used to store the state of a workflow process instance and the workflow's steps and process properties. The workflow process state and process properties are saved in the S_WFA_INSTANCE and S_WFA_INST_PROP tables.

By using workflow persistence to store the state of a workflow process, you can build an end-to-end workflow which includes Wait steps, Sub Process steps, and other interruptions. Persistence also maintains the active state of a process over short or long periods of time, with activity occurring in various parts of your enterprise.

When persistence is set to TRUE, a user can continue with a workflow process that is suspended. The suspended workflow appears in the user's Inbox.

About Workflow Persistence

Workflow persistence is a property of a workflow process that supports long lived transactions within a single workflow process. Workflow persistence allows process resumption after a pause or a server failure. Workflow persistence saves and restores data when the process is resumed.

For example, with persistence set on an interactive workflow, a user of the workflow can set aside their work and take a break. If the workflow persistence parameter times out, the workflow will be in the user's Inbox ready for resumption when the user returns.

The workflow persistence setting applies to the long-running workflow process, interactive workflow process, and 7.0 workflow process. You cannot use workflow persistence with a service workflow process.

The persistence property is a YES/NO setting. For long-running workflows, persistence is automatically set by the server at execution time. For interactive workflows, you set the persistence property using the Auto Persist flag in the Workflow Processes list editor in Siebel Tools.

Behavior for persistence includes:

• A long-running workflow is automatically persisted.
• An interactive workflow is persisted on suspension, if the Auto Persist flag is set.

  You control workflow persistence by setting the Auto Persist flag. When a session times out or a user logs out of a Web session, a workflow process with the Auto Persist flag set to YES is persisted and can be resumed from the Universal Inbox.

• A 7.0 workflow with persistence set is marked as Auto Persist and is persisted.

NOTE:  In some releases prior to Siebel version 8.0, workflow persistence was used for monitoring workflow processes, and persistence was controlled by adjusting two settings that can apply to individual steps of a workflow: frequency and level. With version 8.0 and higher, process monitoring is separate from workflow persistence, and it is not necessary for persistence to be set for a long-running process, because the long-running process is set by default. For 7.0 workflow processes that had persistence set, the Auto Persist flag is automatically set to YES during upgrade and import.

Note that a persisted workflow process is automatically purged once it finishes running.

Modifying Workflow Persistence

For a long-running workflow process, persistence occurs by default. For an interactive workflow process, you set the Auto Persist flag in the Process Designer within Siebel Tools.

CAUTION:  Defining Workflow Persistence for a large number of workflow processes can result in the creation of a large number of records in S_WF_PROP_VAL. For more information, seeDisabling Persistence to Avoid Excessive Records in S_WF_PROP_VAL.

To configure workflow persistence for an interactive workflow process

1. In Siebel Tools, in the Object Explorer, click the Workflow Process object type.
2. In the Workflow Processes OBLE, click the process you need to work with.
3. In the Auto Persist property, choose YES using the drop down picklist.