Managing plan file status in a workflow

Within a workflow, each individual plan file has a workflow status. You can use the Workflow Manager to check plan file status, and fix any issues that need attention.

Status can only be managed for individual files if the workflow is active. If the workflow is inactive or has been stopped, then the plan file status simply reflects the workflow status, and any action should be taken on the workflow itself.

NOTES:

If an error occurs while changing plan file status, the error is displayed in the Workflow Manager, in the Error Details column. This column is located on the far right of the Plan Files list (you may need to scroll to view it).
Stage administrators cannot manually start, complete, or abort plan files within a workflow. However, they can edit ownership assignments, which may automatically trigger a plan file to be started or completed.

Starting inactive plan files

If a plan file's status is Inactive, then the plan file is not part of the workflow (it has no assigned owners for any stage). This may be intentional—you may have a few plan files in the file group that do not need to proceed through the workflow. But if the plan file is supposed to participate in the workflow, this is a signal that the plan file needs attention.

You can edit the workflow to assign stage owners to the plan file. Once the workflow is saved with these owner assignments, the plan file will automatically be started in the workflow. Once the background processes are complete, the plan file status should change to Active.

Fixing stalled plan files

If a plan file's status is Stalled, then the plan file has an issue that needs to be resolved. For example, the owner of the stage may be disabled or deleted in Security, so the plan file cannot progress. You need to either assign a new stage owner or enable the user in Security (if appropriate), so that the plan file can continue to progress through the workflow.

Once the assignment change or the security change is made, you restart the plan file as follows:

In the Plan Files pane of the Workflow Manager, right-click the plan file and then select Reactivate Workflow.

This will reactivate the plan file at the stage it was in when the stall occurred.

Fixing plan files stuck in a pending status

In rare cases a plan file may get stuck in a Pending status, if an unexpected issue occurs while the plan file is in the process of changing status.

If this occurs, you can "reset" the plan file as follows:

In the Plan Files pane of the Workflow Manager, right-click the plan file and then select Regenerate Workflow Tasks.

This will reactivate the plan file at the stage it was in when the issue occurred.

Aborting workflow for individual plan files

You can stop a workflow for an individual plan file, and then either leave it stopped or restart it. If a plan file is restarted, it will start over from the first stage in the workflow.

In the Plan Files pane of the Workflow Manager, right-click the plan file and then select Abort Workflow.

All workflow tasks for the plan file are deleted, and the status is changed to Aborted. If the plan file does not need to progress through the workflow, you can leave it as is. If you want to restart the plan file, right-click it and then select Start Workflow.

Completing the workflow for individual plan files

You can complete the workflow for an individual plan file. When you complete the workflow for a plan file, all workflow tasks for the plan file are deleted, and the status is changed to Completed.

The primary intent of this feature is to allow an administrator to move a plan file from its final stage to completed, if the owner is not able to. However, you can move a plan file to complete at any stage.

In the Plan Files pane of the Workflow Manager, right-click the plan file and then select Complete Workflow.