Workflow Activities

Last updated Feb 26, 2025

About the Flowchart Builder activities

The activities described in this chapter help you design a Long Running Workflow canvas for new processes, using BPMN elements.

The Long running worfklow canvas becomes available after you install the Flowchart Builder activity package. The canvas can be also accessed from the Long running automation template.

Flowchart Builder activities are categorized by their main functionality inside a long running workflow:

Task

The Task category contains activities that may represent a single step or a collection of steps within the process, either automatic or involving human intervention, that must execute in a sequential order. For example, reviewing a document, making a decision, processing a payment, or sending an email.

While designing your long running workflow, use the generic Task activity to symbolize an operation within the workflow. You can later replace the task with a specialized type, such as:

Agentic Task—Use it when the step must be completed by an agent.
User Task—Use it when the step requires human input through an Action Center task.
Business Rule Task—Use it when the step requires interaction with a DMN file, uploaded in Orchestrator as a Business Rule.
Service Task—Use it when the step must be performed automatically, without a human intervention.
Send Task—Use it when the step requires sending information to an external system, without pausing the process.
Receive Task—Use it when the step needs to wait for a specific event to complete before proceeding with the next step.
Subprocess—Use it when the step requires grouping related elements within a process, to simplify the main long running workflow.

Gateway

The Gateway category contains graphic symbols to mark decision-making points within the flow of your process. Use them to control the execution of a process on specific conditions.

Decision—Use it when the next steps in a process depend on the True or False response to a condition. You can add two branches to this activity, one for when the condition is met, and one for when the condition is not met.
Switch—Use it when the next steps in a process depend on various responses to a condition. These responses are called cases, and the order in which you define them determines the sequence in which the Switch activity evaluates them. For example, if case 0 is not met, the activity evaluates case 1, then case 2, and so on. You must define a default case, which applies when no other cases match the condition.
Split—Use it when a process branch needs to divide into multiple paths, to allow simultaneous or conditioned operations.
Merge—Use it when multiple paths or operations need to converge to continue the process execution.

Intermediate Throw and Catch

The Intermediate Throw and Catch categories contain activities used to model events that occur during a process, often involving external interactions or waiting for specific triggers.

Intermediate Throw is an event category containing the Intermediate Event activity.
- Intermediate Event—Use it to mark a placeholder within your process that can be replaced with an Intermediate Catch event activity, such as Timer Intermediate Catch Event or Message Intermediate Catch Event.
Intermediate Catch activities await or "catch" messages or triggers, pausing the process until conditions are met, such as waiting for a message or a specified time interval to pass.
- Timer Intermediate Catch Event—Use it to suspend the execution of your process until a specified time condition is met.
- Message Intermediate Catch Event—Use it to suspend the execution of your process until a specified event occurs.

Boundary

The Boundary category contains activities used to model events that interrupt or interact with ongoing execution. Attach them to a Task or a Subprocess only.

Adding a boundary event separately to the canvas is not supported. You can add multiple boundary events to one task as long as they monitor different events.

Error Boundary Event—Use it to handle exceptions, such as catching errors or failures that occur during the execution of the attached Task or Subprocess.

End

The End category contains activities or graphic symbols used to indicate where the execution of a process or a path within the process stops.

End Event—Use it when you want to indicate where a process ends.
Error End Event—Use it when you want to generate an error that can be captured by an Error Boundary Event.
Terminate End Event—Use it when you want to terminate the instance of a specific process scope.

To change between the available end events: