How to jump to specific tasks inside a workflow?

[Legacy User]

We recently received a ticket requesting the following:

 I have this foreach workflow with task: A, B, C, D, E, F
Let's say I'm currently in task C, and for some reason I want to skip to the next iteration, meaning going back to task A in the workflow.
Is it possible without adding preconditions to task D, E, F to skip themselves?
Is there a way to tell the workflow "GOTO task A and resume normal execution from there?"

Are there any examples of anyone using this?

[Legacy User]

AFAIK there is no way to issue something like a goto command, would probably be bad form anyway and prone to problems (loops).

What you can do to modify running workflow structures is using modify Task:
http://docs.automic.com/documentation/AE/11.2/english/AE_WEBHELP/help.htm?product=awa#ucacpg.htm

If you really just want to skip to the next iteration (aka starting from task A again), i would simply cancel the current execution and start another one.

[Anon Anon]

Hi Daniel, thanks very much.

How would I skip to the next iteration?  Do something in the post condition of task C, for example? What action is that? I understand cancel will just kill the workflow.

[Legacy User]

Not sure about looping back to task A but I believe you can set some tasks in a workflow to become "inactive" (which basically means if task D, E, and F are inactive, they won't get activated. So if your for each workflow iterates x times, it should execute task A and B x times and skip D, E, and F.

http://docs.automic.com/documentation/AE/10.0.5/english/AE_WEBHELP/help.htm?product=ara#ucacpg.htm?Highlight=set task inactive

MODIFY_TASK (RunID, [Task name], [Running number], ACTIVE , Value)

Example

The task FILE.INPUT of the workflow MM.DAY is set to inactive.

 

:SET &RUNID# = GET_UC_OBJECT_NR("MM.DAY") 
:SET &RETSTOP# = MODIFY_TASK(&RUNID#, STOP_MODIFY)
:SET &RET# = MODIFY_TASK(&RUNID#, "FILE.INPUT",, ACTIVE, "NO") 
:SET &RETCOMMIT# = MODIFY_TASK(&RUNID#, COMMIT)
:SET &RETGO# = MODIFY_TASK(&RUNID#, GO)

 

[Anon Anon]

Hi Christine, what I had done was to have each task check an error variable, and if it was <> "", skip themselves.  I think it's simpler than keeping track of all the tasks that need to be skipped by a postcondition in a previous task.

So basically there is no way to jump (not in a way that can be easily tracked at least), workflows are linear beasts.

[Legacy User]

Yes, my suggestion was also meant to kill the current RunID and start a new one.
If you need to iterate through the same structure several times you could use for each workflows
http://docs.automic.com/documentation/AE/11.2/english/AE_WEBHELP/help.htm?product=awa#ucacwb.htm
These could maybe help with your task, its difficult to say without an actual use case.