Adding branching logic in processes

With branching logic in processes, you can control the execution flow of activities for a process. Branching logic is available for all processes.

Use branching logic when a process needs to:

• Take different paths through its activities

• Attempt auto-recovery from a failure

  Note

  If a failure branch of a process is initiated and that branch does not contain an "execute last failed activity" activity, the process terminates with a failed status at the end of the branch being processed.

  For example, you might use this if you need to start a server process, and the start mechanism is nonblocking in such a manner that you need to regularly test the server state until it has initiated correctly or fails after a number of attempts.

To add a new failure branch to an existing process

1. Click the Define tab.
2. From the left menu, select Processes.
3. Locate and click the process to which you want to add branching logic.

4. Click the Activities tab where you want to add a failure dependency.

   • For the channel/environment process, click New Activity.
   • For the content process, click the appropriate tab for the desired activity, and then click New Activity.

   Note

   You can add a new activity with a dependency or modify an existing activity by clicking its green plus icon for the dependency settings.

5. Provide a name for the activity to initiate the failure branch.
6. Identify the library to use to initiate the failure branch.
7. Select Failure as the dependency type, and select the dependent activity from the list.
8. Click Create for a new activity, or click the Submit icon to save changes to an existing activity.
9. For each task in the Tasks section, view and modify the task settings in the Configure tab.
10. Click Save, and then click Done.

After a failure branch has been initiated, the flow inside the branch follows the standard dependency order. Activities can depend on the success or failure of activities within the failure branch, enabling you to create complex branching logic. In the console, the failure branch from a top-level activity is visually indented to show that it is a separate path from the successful execution flow through the process.

Failure branch activities

The following activity libraries are designed specifically for failure branch logic: