Suspending a Process Instance

You can suspend activity in a process instance, which causes all work items that are associated with that process instance to also become suspended, and the process flow is halted at that point. Work items that are suspended cannot be worked on, for example, they cannot be opened, allocated, re-offered, or cancelled.

To suspend a process instance, you must have the Resume/Suspend Process instance system action.

Note:
  • if you have:
    • work items that have a timer event configured, or
    • timer events defined within the process
      and the timer event is reached while the process instance is suspended, then the timer event is still processed. However, you will not see this activity until the process instance has resumed. For example:
      • If the process is configured to move to the next task when the timer event has fired, the process moves to the next task when the process resumes.
      • If the task that has a timer event is set to withdraw on expiry, then the task is withdrawn when the process resumes.
  • work items that are suspended become hidden in the work item list.

If a work item is already open when the process instance is suspended, the work item can still be cancelled, closed or submitted:

  • If cancelled, any changes made on the work item form are discarded and the work item is returned to the work item list with a SUSPENDED state.
  • If closed, any changes made on the work item form are saved, and the work item is returned to the work item list with a state of SUSPENDED.
  • If submitted, any new work items that result from the process flow appear in the appropriate work item lists, but they will have a SUSPENDED state.

The suspended work items cannot be worked on until the process instance is resumed — see Resuming a Suspended Process Instance.

Procedure

  1. Select the process template of which you want to suspend a process instance.
  2. Select a process instance.
  3. From Actions, >Suspend.
    When a process instance is suspended, it’s status changes to SUSPENDED.