Process instance

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Overview

Once the desired processes are defined in the platform, they are ready to be used. Each time a process needs to be used, for example each time a customer wants to request a new credit card, a new instance of the specified process definition is started in the platform. Think of the process definition as a blueprint for a house, and of the process instance as each house of that type being built. The FlowX.AI Engine is responsible for executing the steps in the process definition and handling all the business logic. The token represents the current position in the process and moves from one node to the next based on the sequences and rules defined in the exclusive gateways. In the case of parallel gateways, child tokens are created and eventually merged back into the parent token. Kafka events are used for communication between FlowX.AI components such as the engine and integrations/plugins. Each event type is associated with a Kafka topic to track and orchestrate the messages sent on Kafka. The engine updates the UI by sending messages through sockets.

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Checking the Process Status

To check the status of a process or troubleshoot a failed process, follow these steps:

1. Open FlowX.AI Designer.
2. Go to Projects → Your Project → Runtime → Active Process → Process instances.

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Understanding the Process Status data

Understanding the various elements within process status data is crucial. Here’s what each component entails:

• The Status field indicates the state of the process instance, offering distinct values:

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Process instance details

Click on a process instance to view the details.

• Active process instance: The UUID of the process instance, with a copy action available.
• Variables: Displayed as a tree view or a JSON view. You can modify the variables using the JSON editor (available for STARTED or ON HOLD process instances). Check Update Process Variables for more information.

• Tokens: A token represents the state within the process instance and describe the current position in the process flow.

• Subprocesses: Displayed only if the current process instance generated a subprocess instance.
• Exceptions: Errors that let you know where the process is blocked, with a direct link to the node where the process is breaking for easy editing.

• Audit Log: The audit log displays events registered for process instances, tokens, tasks, and exceptions in reverse chronological order by timestamp.

• Workflows: If process instance has a Start Workflow node, the workflow will be displayed here.
• Trigger: Displayed for process instances started by an event-based trigger (such as an email trigger). Shows the following details:

• Notifications: Displays email notifications sent from this process instance. The table includes the following columns:

• Documents: Single source of truth for every document handled during the process instance, regardless of how it entered the process. Each row exposes tracking metadata and an inline preview, and any document can be downloaded directly from the tab. Sources covered:
  • End-user uploads via the file-upload component
  • Attachments forwarded from an email trigger
  • Files generated from HTML templates
  • Files produced by OCR processing
  • Files produced by AI workflow nodes (for example, Document Generation)

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Color coding

In the Process Status view, some nodes are highlighted with different colors to easily identify any failures:

• Green: Nodes highlighted with green mark the nodes passed by the token.
• Red: The node highlighted with red marks the node where the token is stuck (process failure).

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Starting a new process instance

To start a new process instance, a request must be made to the FlowX.AI Engine. This is handled by the web/mobile application. The current user must have the appropriate role/permission to start a new process instance. To be able to start a new process instance, the current user needs to have the appropriate role/permissions: When starting a new process instance, we can also set it to inherit some values from a previous process instance.

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Troubleshooting possible errors

If everything is configured correctly, the new process instance should be visible in the UI and added to the database. However, if you encounter issues, here are some common error messages and their possible solutions: Possible errors include: