We are seeing something unusual occur with one of our process models. When

What I generally prefer in this case is following.

To have an XOR gateway after the start event and configure a constant (Boolean type) in the XOR gateway. While publishing the process model I make sure the constant is set to false which will redirect the flow of the process instance to end event.

Note: The only constraint in this that one need to check the value of constant each time one publish the process model.

Now to remove this dependency, I generally put my logic in the sub-process and publish the sub-process process model and the main process (which is having a timer event) in never published.

What I generally prefer in this case is following.

To have an XOR gateway after the start event and configure a constant (Boolean type) in the XOR gateway. While publishing the process model I make sure the constant is set to false which will redirect the flow of the process instance to end event.

Note: The only constraint in this that one need to check the value of constant each time one publish the process model.

Now to remove this dependency, I generally put my logic in the sub-process and publish the sub-process process model and the main process (which is having a timer event) in never published.