Purging Process Instances

By default, all process instances that are completed, cancelled or failed are automatically purged from TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM. If you want to keep completed process instances for a period of time, for auditing purposes for example, you can configure your process templates in Process Views so that they are not automatically purged.

You can do this by configuring a purging strategy for individual, or a group of, process templates. There are two purging strategies:
  • Immediate. If you select Immediate, process instances are purged automatically as soon as they are completed, cancelled, or failed.
  • Deferred. If you select Deferred, completed and cancelled process instances are not automatically purged from TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM. You can either:
    • specify a duration so that the process instances are purged after the duration you specify. To do this, set the bpelMaintenancePurgeProcessInterval property in the pvm.properties file. See "Process Engine Properties (pvm.properties)" in TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM Administration Guide for more information.
    • manually purge the process instances, using the Purge Process CLI. See "Using the Purge Process CLI" in TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM Administration Guide for more information.

If you do not configure a purging strategy for your process templates, completed and cancelled process instances continue to be automatically purged.

Note that:
  • Once you have set a purging strategy, it applies to all versions of that process template. If you deploy a new version of a process template, the new version of the template inherits the purge strategy settings for the previous version.
  • If the purge strategy is changed, the new strategy applies to all currently active versions of the template and all process instances executing against these versions. This means, if you have set a process template's purging strategy to Deferred and then decide to reset it to Immediate, completed and cancelled process instances saved at this point are not automatically purged. You must manually purge those process instances.
  • If a process template is a sub-process, you must still set the purging strategy for the process template. In other words, the sub-process cannot inherit a purging strategy from the main or calling process template. You must configure a purging strategy for each process template.
  • When the last version of a process template is un-deployed then, regardless of its purging strategy, all un-purged process instances are scheduled for purging.

Prerequisites

You must be logged in to TIBCO Openspace as a user who has been assigned the system action, bulkPurgeProcessInstances to configure purging strategies for process templates.

Procedure

  1. From Process Views, click Templates.
  2. Select the process template you want to purge. You can select a single process template or multiple templates, depending on your requirements.
  3. Click Purge Immediately or Deferred ().
  4. From the Select Purging Strategy dialog, select either:
    • Immediate. If you have selected Deferred for a process template but then decide to purge the process instances automatically, select Immediate.
    • Deferred. Select Deferred if you want completed and cancelled process instances to remain in TIBCO ActiveMatrix BPM. You must manually purge them.
  5. Click OK to save your changes or Cancel to exit the dialog without saving your changes.