Instances

Each time a business process starts on a record, Process Orchestrator creates a process instance. The instance records where the process is, which stages have run, who worked on them and whether anything went wrong. Users open it from the record, from a stage task (the task’s Regarding is the instance) or from the instance views.

The process instance

A process instance is an activity. Its main columns:

Column	What it holds
Subject	The process Title, calculated for this record.
Regarding	The record the process runs on.
Process Version	The version the instance runs on. It does not change, even if a newer version is activated.
Parent Process Instance	The instance that started this one, when it was started as a sub-process.
Start date, due date, owner	From the process Due Date and Process Instance Owner.
Error Message	Why the instance faulted. See Validation messages.

Instance statuses

Status	Meaning
Open	The instance is running: at least one branch is still active.
Completed	Every branch has reached an End.
Canceled	Someone canceled the instance.
Faulted	The instance stopped because of an error. The reason is in Error Message.

Stage records

Every time the process enters a stage, a Process Stage record is created. A stage visited twice (for example, after a rework loop) has two records. Gateways and ends that the instance reaches are recorded too, so you can follow the exact path.

Column	What it holds
Stage Type	Regular, Escalation, Gateway or End.
Stage Unique Name	The name of the stage in the process.
Came From	“The stage or gateway the process came from.”
Escalated From	For an escalation stage, the overdue stage visit it came from.
Has Escalation	Whether the stage has an escalation stage.
Transitioned On	When the process left the stage.
Error	Details when the stage faulted.

The views My Process Stages and My Open Process Stages show stages only; gateway and end records are left out.

Stage statuses

Status	Meaning
Active	The stage is running and waiting for its completion criteria.
Completed	The completion criteria became true and the process moved on.
Escalated	The stage passed its due date and the process moved to its escalation stage.
Canceled	The instance was canceled while the stage was active.
Faulted	Something failed in the stage. See its Error column.

Parallel branches

After a parallel or inclusive gateway, an instance has several active stages at once, one per branch. There is no single “current stage”: the instance stays Open until every branch has reached an End. Each branch has its own tasks and values.

Branches of one instance move on one at a time. When a user completes a task, the work that follows (the On Exiting flows, routing and the next stages’ On Entering flows) runs as part of saving that task, and other branches of the same instance wait until it finishes. That work also counts toward Dataverse’s two-minute limit for synchronous operations, so keep stage flows short. Two tasks of the same stage completed at the same moment are handled correctly.

Cancel an instance

1. Open the process instance.
2. Set its status to Canceled, the same way you close any other activity as canceled.

Canceling an instance cancels every open branch and its open tasks. You cannot set an instance to Completed by hand while it still has an active stage.

There are no actions to skip a stage or move an instance to a different stage. To change who is working on a stage, reassign its task in Dataverse. To change the path of future instances, publish and activate a new version.

Related

• Tracing
• Gateways and ends
• Escalations
• Validation messages