Workflow History

Concept

BPMN 2.0 workflows are a concept feature. They're still being developed and can change before they're released. They're available only when the site's license includes the Concept feature Bpmn2.

Audience: Low-code Engineers

Skill Prerequisites: Workflows

General Description

The History tab of App Builder › Workflows, beside Workflows and Contracts, lists the runs of BPMN 2.0 workflows in progress on this site: where each one waits or failed, how long it has been going, and the time it spent running its steps. From here you can cancel a run that waits or failed.

The tab shows only while the site's license includes the Concept feature Bpmn2. Test runs aren't listed. A run leaves the list when it completes or is cancelled.

Showing runs

Control	What it does
Show	Which runs to list: Waiting (the default), Running, Failed, or All in progress.
Refresh	Reads the list again.
Load older runs	The list shows 50 runs at a time, newest first. This adds the next 50.

When nothing matches, the tab says so, for example No workflow is waiting. or No workflow has failed.

Statuses

Status	Means
Waiting	The run is saved at one or more waits: a timer, an event, a user task's task, or a workflow it called.
Running	The run waited, and is now running its next steps in the background.
Failed	The run failed after a wait: an error that no error event caught, or its server stopped while it ran a step. It stays where it failed.

A run that fails before its first wait isn't saved, so it isn't listed: its caller gets the error, as for any workflow.

Columns

Column	What it shows
Workflow	The workflow's name, which opens it in the editor, or Deleted workflow #7. Below it, the run's number and the version it runs on, such as #12 · v2 · current is v3 when the workflow has changed since the run started. A run started by a call activity shows called by #9.
Status	Waiting, Running or Failed.
Where	For a waiting run, each wait, such as Wait 5 minutes waits for a timer, Wait for Purchase request ordered waits for the event "Purchase request ordered", Check budget waits for the workflow it called or Book the invoice waits for its task, with when a timer is due and since when it waits. For a failed run, At "Check supplier" and the error. For a running run, Running now.
Started	When the run started, and who started it.
Running for	How long since the run started. For a failed run, until it failed.
Active time	The time the run spent running its steps, without the waits, or unknown when it wasn't recorded.
Steps	How many elements the run has entered.

Times show in their two largest units, such as 120 ms, 4.2 s, 12 min 5 s, 3 h 20 min or 2 d 4 h.

Cancelling a run

Cancel is in the last column of runs that are waiting or failed. A run that is running a step can't be cancelled, since the step would overwrite the cancellation when it ends.

1. Select Cancel on the run.
2. Read the confirmation, Cancel run #12: the workflow stops where it is and can't go on, the runs it called are cancelled too, and a workflow that called it goes on at its error events. This can't be undone.
3. Select Cancel the run, or Keep it to leave it.

When a run is cancelled:

• It ends as cancelled and leaves the list. What it saved while waiting is deleted.
• The runs its call activities wait for are cancelled with it. A called run that is running a step at that moment isn't cancelled: it ends on its own, and nothing waits for it any more.
• A workflow whose call activity waits for the cancelled run goes on at the call activity's error events, with the error code Cancelled and a message that says who cancelled it.
• The tasks its user tasks wait for are cancelled, as the system, with the comment Run #12 of the workflow that created this task was cancelled.

If the run can't be cancelled, the tab says why above the list:

Message	Means
Run #12 is running a step right now. Try again in a moment.	The run started a step after the list was read.
Run #12 has already ended.	The run completed or was cancelled after the list was read.
Run #12 wasn't found.	The run doesn't exist on this site.
The run couldn't be cancelled.	Something else went wrong. The details are in the log.

Considerations

• A failed run can only be cancelled. Retrying a failed run, or moving a run to the workflow's current version, isn't available yet. Fix the cause, cancel the run, and start the process again.
• A run can't be stopped in the middle of a step. Wait until the step ends and the run waits or fails, then cancel it.
• Deleting a workflow doesn't cancel its runs. They stay in the list as Deleted workflow #7. Cancel the runs you no longer need before you delete the workflow.
• Finished runs aren't listed. The tab shows only the runs in progress.

Revised 11/12/2026