Tech Tip: Troubleshooting Laserfiche Workflow
By: Sarah Seene
Technical Writer
Laserfiche Workflow’s power and flexibility lets you automate almost any process in your organization. As any workflow designer knows, configuring all the moving parts in a workflow can take some trial and error. But successfully configured workflows can run for years, as they tirelessly file, name, update, and route documents. Below is a list of troubleshooting tips and resources to help you on your way to automating long-lasting processes.
Tips for testing workflows
- Build workflows in increments and test each section as it’s built.
- Use the Run Workflow
feature to test workflows from the Workflow Designer. - Check the instances details (especially the Workflow, Messages, Conditions, and Tokens tabs) to see how workflows ran.
- Disable activities to focus on specific sections of the workflow in your tests.
- Add Track Token activities at key junctures in the workflow to see token values at those points.
If a workflow won’t start
- Check the Subscriber Trace Log in the Workflow Administration Console. The Subscriber Trace Log shows the repositories Workflow monitors and how Workflow responds to changes in those repositories.
- Ensure Workflow is monitoring the same repository as is configured in the workflow’s connection profile.
- Select the event that should have started the workflow to see how relevant starting rules evaluated for the event; often this reveals flaws in the starting rule’s logic.
- Search the instance details for the workflow that should have started. If the workflow appears in the instance details, it started but failed immediately. Skip to the next section for more tips.
- Ensure your starting rules are enabled and configured correctly.
- Review the Workflow error logs and then the Windows Event Viewer logs.
- If there are no errors and the workflow isn’t starting, the Workflow Subscriber may be backlogged. See the performance section below for more tips.
- Check the Workflow Configuration Manager to ensure all Workflow’s components are running.
If a workflow isn’t running correctly
- If the workflow had errors, use the instances details (especially the Workflow and Messages tabs) to pinpoint the problem. Review the activity error log for more information.
- If the workflow is repeating in quick succession, it has runaway and will quickly overwhelm the Workflow Server. First, disable the workflow’s starting rule. Then examine the starting rule and workflow for the problem. Make sure you exclude the Workflow User in the starting rule so the workflow cannot start itself. Learn more.
- Ensure activities are configured correctly. If an activity needs to interact with a specific entry, make sure the entry is selected in the Properties Pane.
- Double-check the metadata, folder paths, tokens, and connection profiles.
- If the workflow is stuck at a wait condition, check the Conditions tab in the instance details. If necessary, you can override a wait condition in the Wait Conditions node in the Workflow Administration Console.
- Email and database activities may fail because of a problem with the email server or database. Use the Try-Catch activity to define an alternative course of action if this happens.
- If the workflow fails due to a Laserfiche Server error, those errors can be handled in the Task Error Handler node of the Workflow Administration Console.
If workflows are running slowly
- In the Workflow Designer, use a Workflow Statistics Report and the instance details’ Details tab to review workflows’ speeds.
- If a specific activity is running slowly, check the Tasks and Running Processes nodes of the Workflow Administration Console.
- If a Script activity is taking too long to run, you can change the script’s domain model in the Performance (Advanced) tab in the Scripting node in the Workflow Administration Console.
- Check for subscriber backlogs in the repository tab in the Subscriber Trace log. If the processing load graphs are excessively high, review the settings in the Advanced Server Options (particularly the Monitored Repository and Task Thread options).
- Follow starting rule best practices so the rules run as efficiently as possible. Learn more.
Note: These tips and many more are explored in depth in the Troubleshooting Workflow: Q&A about Designing Workflows, Starting Workflows, and Workflow Permissions,
Troubleshooting Workflow: Q&A about Unexpected Behavior and Error Handling, and Troubleshooting Workflow: Q&A about Performance white papers.
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