We're on the cloud version and running into a problem with activity chaining

nickh413445

Certified Senior Developer

over 9 years ago

We're on the cloud version and running into a problem with activity chaining (I think)

One of our requirements is to dynamically generate about 5 documents when the user starts a process. Two of these documents are using a process model loop to generate a document for each item in an array. Once the process model is complete it's supposed to show a page that lists all the documents for download.

The problem is the process model kicks the user out of the flow even though everything is activity chained, and the input task that has the documents for download can't be reached. We added an input task inbetween saying 'your documents are being generated' but the user can still click a 'continue' button before the documents are done and the same problem exists.

I'm thinking it could be because of the process model loop, or maybe there's more than 50 activity chained nodes taking the loops into account.

Is there some ki...

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0 nickh413445
Certified Senior Developer
over 9 years ago

...nd of smart service that can download the documents? Any ideas on how to solve this problem?
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0 narasimhaadityac
A Score Level 2
over 9 years ago

I believe there is a time limit on the activity chaining, once the process model takes more than 8 seconds, it will break the activity chaining, can you please check under process nodes how much time its taking? for downloading the documents, as they will be in the Appian system, I believe we can use the a!documentDownloadLink(),
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0 moritzw over 9 years ago

you could send the generated documents by e-mail. That way you wouldn't need the activity chaining, which doesn't work for longer running background processes.
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0 nickh413445
Certified Senior Developer
over 9 years ago

Yes, we're using a!documentDownloadLink() on the interface, the problem is displaying the interface with all of the documents on it. Is the process model timeout limit configurable?
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0 nickh413445
Certified Senior Developer
over 9 years ago

Unfortunately email isn't what the customer wants. They want a page that lists all the documents as download links.
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0 sikhivahans over 9 years ago

@nickh Probably you can think of triggering the user input task and configure a button in the same, which checks for the existence of documents. If documents exists, then the interface begins displaying links else instructions can be surfaced to user stating that the document generation is under process.

One more feature which can let the user know that the document generation is completed is, you can make the user Follow the Record either manually or programatically and then make a new post saying that the document generation is complete. This new post further notifies the user via email about the same. This way we can also avoid the long running process as well.
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0 sikhivahans over 9 years ago

I don't think that the activity chaining will be broken if 8 seconds timelimit is exceeded. Until and unless I am not wrong, this timelimit is now 10 minutes (correct me if I am wrong). Because I have seen activities which takes more than 8 seconds but the chain won't be broken. Probably the chaining would have been because of the excessive nodes(greater than 50).
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0 narasimhaadityac
A Score Level 2
over 9 years ago

@sikhivahans, You are right, the time limit is 10 minutes as given in the documentation. forum.appian.com/.../Configuring_Activity-Chaining.html
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