I need to have a functionality that would normally cause a process instance to l

What version are you using? Entity backed Records could solve this problem.

Build your process so when initiated it writes a record to the database, then direct the user to the record.

The record filters could then show active records by a status and / or by date.

I am using 7.9. Thank you.

Take a look at this to start with ...

forum.appian.com/.../Record_Design.html

The docs will be available for 7.9 as well.

Records have solved a lot of issues for us and opened up a lot more data driven functionality. We now have several processes that write to a data store to create a record and then the user is pointed in the direction of the record. This is the "hub" of any activity for that record then and can have many different processes intereact with it.

Hope this helps!

If I understand right, the requirement is to wait upto an year based on what user selected to do something and you do not want the process lingering for up to an year.

Put the timer in a subprocess. Start the subprocess async this way the main process may end but the subprocess lives and continues processing. But, yes, some process needs to be waiting regardless.