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Status Under review
Workspace Business Automation Manager Open Edition
Categories Version 8.0.x
Created by Guest
Created on May 6, 2026

RELATED IDEAS

Swimlane actor fallback and recovery mechanism when stored user is no longer valid

Provide a fallback and recovery mechanism when a stored swimlane actor becomes invalid to prevent process instance failure.

Description

In BAMOE 8.x, swimlanes retain and reuse the actor (user) who previously completed a task within the same lane. This behavior is documented and works as expected under normal conditions.

However, in long-running processes, it is common for users to become invalid over time (e.g., removed, disabled, or no longer resolvable by the identity provider). When a process re-enters a swimlane and the engine attempts to assign a task to a previously stored but now invalid user, the task creation fails and the process instance becomes unrecoverable.

This leads to a critical operational issue: process instances cannot continue execution and must be manually aborted, with no built-in recovery path.

Currently:

  • Disabling Autoclaim does not solve the problem, as the swimlane still retains the invalid actor.
  • There is no validation of the actor before assignment.
  • There is no fallback mechanism (e.g., to group assignment).
  • There is no supported way to clear or override the swimlane actor programmatically before task creation.
  • There is no recovery mechanism once the failure occurs.

Why is it useful? Who would benefit from it? How should it work?

This enhancement would significantly improve the resilience of long-running business processes.

Expected behavior could include one or more of the following:

  1. Fallback mechanism
    If the stored swimlane actor is invalid, the task should be assigned to the configured group instead of failing.
  2. Actor validation before assignment
    The engine should verify whether the stored actor is still valid before attempting assignment.
  3. Automatic reset of swimlane actor
    If the actor is invalid, the swimlane context could be cleared, allowing normal assignment rules to apply.
  4. Programmatic control
    Provide APIs or extension points to override or reset the swimlane actor before task creation.
  5. Graceful task creation
    Task creation should not fail due to an invalid actor. The process instance should remain recoverable.

This would benefit any organization using long-running processes where user lifecycle changes are expected, which is a common scenario in enterprise environments.

Idea priority High

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