Enqueue Errors - ECC 6.0

[Sample, Rick]

Did this issue get resolved? Oss Note?

I just now noticed that users can not add WF Notes when 
this in "Locked" via Enqueue in ecc6.

Rick Sample
Sr. SAP Business Workflow Developer
Graybar, Inc.





-----Original Message-----
From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf
Of Mike Pokraka
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 11:37 AM
To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
Subject: RE: Enqueue Errors - ECC 6.0

Yes we are putting into question the design of the workflow runtime
system
because that's just rubbish. You cannot lock an entire workflow whilst
someone goes on lunch in the middle of a transaction!

So basically SAP are telling us that:
- a dialog task in an 'advance with dialog' chain
- with another dialog task in parallel
must go into a subworkflow in case a user gets a phone call in mid
transaction and ends up blocking everyone else in the flow. Amazing!

I've built workflows on earlier versions which can easily reach 10-20
parallel users (via outcomes of a dynamic parallel processing task - a
perfectly valid construct). That's just become a big upgrade headache.

I suggest that anyone encountering this log it with OSS and asks them to
fix it, I certainly will.

Thanks for keeping us updated.
Cheers,
Mike


On Tue, October 23, 2007 3:11 pm, Sue Doughty wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> I've moved two of the three decisions and the call to PA40 into a sub
> workflow and now all three branches of the fork can now be completed.
>
> I replied back to OSS stating that I felt like it was not working
> correctly and this is their response.....they will NOT do anything
about
> it and suggested, as you did, to do sub workflows:
>
> thank for your response as well, and of course your valuable input
> is always appreciated. Nevertheless we have now reached a level,
> where you put into question the fundamental design / architecture
> of the workflow runtime system.
>
> An important feature of the workflow runtime system are so-called
> "synchronous process chains" (advance with dialog), i.e. if there
> is a sequence of dialog steps to be processed by the same user,
> they are executed as one chain without going to the inbox in between.
> A pre-requiste for this is the lock on the father workflow during
> the entire process chain.
>
> workflow F_______________________________
> ^ | ^ | ^
> | | | | |
> task ___W1___| v___W2___| v___W2___|
>
> ----------------------------------------------> time
>
> In your case there are two of such process chains, which collide
> because they are in parallel branches of a fork.
>
> I talked again to my boss, who is not only development manager
> but in this case also the responsible developer. He definitely
> sees no room for tolerance here.
>
> On the other side there should be a workaround by embedding the
> individual branches into subflows, because only the direct father
> and not the top-level workflow is locked. Hope this helps.
>
> Mike, I really appreciate your help in this!!
>
> Regards,
> Sue T. Doughty
> SAP Workflow Specialist
> OLD DOMINION FREIGHT LINE, INC.
> 500 Old Dominion Way, Thomasville, NC 27360
> Toll Free :(800)432-6335, ext.5189
> Phone :(336)822-5189 Fax :(336)822-5149
> sue.doughty at odfl.com
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On
Behalf
> Of Mike Pokraka
> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 9:47 AM
> To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
> Subject: RE: Enqueue Errors - ECC 6.0
>
> OK, as I understand it:
>
> User A in one branch executes a decision and is advanced to the next
> step,
> which is a transaction.
> Before user A completes the txn, user B executes a decision in another
> branch followed by another unrelated action. This fails because user A
> has
> locked the WF.
>
> If I've understood this correctly then I'd call that a big fat bug. I
> would suggest replicating this in a test WF in it's simplest form -
does
> it do the same without the decisions (i.e. just two PA40's in parallel
> branches)? What if you use transactions other than PA40 in both
> branches?
> Simplify as far as possible and send it back to OSS. (and let us know
> the
> outcome).
>
> Cheers,
> Mike
>
>
> On Tue, October 23, 2007 12:36 pm, Sue Doughty wrote:
>> Hi Mike,
>>
>> Thanks for your response.
>>
>> It is a standard call to PA40.
>>
>> Hi Mike,
>>
>> Thank you for your response.
>>
>> It is a standard call to PA40.
>>
>> I agree...a task should NOT lock the TOP level workflow.
>>
>> I did what you said and got the PA40 up and then tried to execute
>> another branch doing something different.  It still locks the
workflow
>> at the top level.
>>
>> I will try moving the decisions out into the sub workflow and see if
>> that changes things.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Sue T. Doughty
>> SAP Workflow Specialist
>> OLD DOMINION FREIGHT LINE, INC.
>> 500 Old Dominion Way, Thomasville, NC 27360
>> Toll Free :(800)432-6335, ext.5189
>> Phone :(336)822-5189 Fax :(336)822-5149
>> sue.doughty at odfl.com
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On
> Behalf
>> Of Mike Pokraka
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 4:46 AM
>> To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
>> Subject: RE: Enqueue Errors - ECC 6.0
>>
>> Hi Sue,
>>
>> OK, so that changes the picture a little. Regarding subWF, you should
>> try
>> putting the entire user dialog chain into the subwf - i.e. the
> decision
>> and the PA40.
>>
>> I've had similar probs where a lock would cause a similar error and
> the
>> error monitoring job would pick it up - as per the OSS response.
> However
>> I
>> am also not convinced this is right. Is this s standard "Call
>> transaction
>> PA40" type of method or does the code do something strange?
>>
>> A task should NOT lock the top level workflow. That defeats the whole
>> point of parallel execution. Yes there can problems if you and up
with
>> two
>> branches joining at the same time and racing for the next step but a
> WF
>> should definitively be able to execute two steps in parallel
otherwise
>> we
>> can all go home. Here's another test: when one user locks PA40, try
to
>> execute something else in the other branch after the decision - or a
>> PA40
>> on a different employee - in other words something that works. If
that
>> also fails then I say it's rubbish design that needs to be fixed.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Mike
>>
>>
>> On Mon, October 22, 2007 9:10 pm, Sue Doughty wrote:
>>> Hi Mike,
>>>
>>> I changed the PA40s to subworkflows.
>>>
>>> I executed the workflow again and tried to execute the decision
tasks
>>> (which call the PA40 subworkflow).
>>>
>>> It is still giving me an enqueue error on the Decision step at the
>>> INSTANCE level if more than one fork is executed at a time.  It
seems
>>> like it is telling me that only one path of the fork can be executed
>> at
>>> a time.  If two people try to execute two different paths, it will
> get
>> a
>>> locking error.  It is two difference paths of a fork and two
separate
>>> decision steps.
>>>
>>> This can't be the way it is supposed to work!
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Sue T. Doughty
>>> SAP Workflow Specialist
>>> OLD DOMINION FREIGHT LINE, INC.
>>> 500 Old Dominion Way, Thomasville, NC 27360
>>> Toll Free :(800)432-6335, ext.5189
>>> Phone :(336)822-5189 Fax :(336)822-5149
>>> sue.doughty at odfl.com
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Sue Doughty
>>> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 11:28 AM
>>> To: 'SAP Workflow Users' Group'
>>> Subject: RE: Enqueue Errors - ECC 6.0
>>>
>>> Hi Mike,
>>>
>>> Thanks for responding.
>>>
>>> There is a decision task.  They can click to print forms or if they
>> want
>>> to do the action in PA40, they click "Execute Payroll (or whatever)
>>> followup action".  The task that gets executed is a call to PA40.
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Sue T. Doughty
>>> SAP Workflow Specialist
>>> OLD DOMINION FREIGHT LINE, INC.
>>> 500 Old Dominion Way, Thomasville, NC 27360
>>> Toll Free :(800)432-6335, ext.5189
>>> Phone :(336)822-5189 Fax :(336)822-5149
>>> sue.doughty at odfl.com
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:sap-wug-bounces at mit.edu] On
>> Behalf
>>> Of Mike Pokraka
>>> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 9:39 AM
>>> To: SAP Workflow Users' Group
>>> Subject: Re: Enqueue Errors - ECC 6.0
>>>
>>> Hmmm, my first thougt was that this is complete nonsense from OSS.
>>> Then I notice that they talk about a decision task. So, now I think
>>> we're
>>> missing a piece of info here - is this a decision or a PA40?
>>>
>>> A possible workaround may be to put the PA40's into a subWF. It may
>> only
>>> lock the subworkflow. On the other hand it may also be a case of
>>> rejecting
>>> SAP's response - depending on this mystery decision task that is
> PA40.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Mike
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, October 22, 2007 1:26 pm, Sue Doughty wrote:
>>>> We are in the process of upgrading from 4.7 to ECC 6.0.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> We have a New Hire workflow that has a fork with three branches.
>> Each
>>>> branch goes to a different department and they all have a work item
>>> that
>>>> executes PA40 where they execute a specific action for the
employee.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In 4.7, if two departments happened to hit the same employee at the
>>> same
>>>> time, the second department trying to execute the work item would
> get
>>> an
>>>> error in PA40 - Employee is being processed by ######.  They would
>>>> cancel out and come back later.  The work item would remain in
their
>>>> in-box.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> In ECC 6.0, the workflow gets an ENQUEUE error - Error when loading
>>>> component: Work item 000000638111 locked (action FIND_FLOWITEM) and
>>> then
>>>> Work item 000000638111 locked by user E050889 (enqueue error)
> (action
>>>> FIND_BY_WIID_BY_WFM)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The error is referencing the Workflow INSTANCE, not the work item
>>> being
>>>> executed.  The work item for the second user is then set to
Complete
>> -
>>>> it never takes them to PA40.  They have no way of going back in
> later
>>>> and executing the action.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I opened a note with SAP and was told that it is working as
> designed.
>>>> See SAP's response below:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Here the lock did not occur during work item execution, but after
>>>> execution during
>>>> the so-called "callback", because the corresponding workflow
(father
>>>> work item) was locked. In such a case the work item (user decision)
>>>> is COMPLETED and the workflow is suspended. Especially the
so-called
>>>> "synchronous process chain" (advance with dialog) is interrupted
>>>> unless SWWERRE puts the subsequent work item (PA40) into the inbox
>>>> of the user concerned.
>>>>
>>>> According to our development manager this works as designed.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I am at a loss as to how to fix this problem.  I don't want to take
>>> out
>>>> the fork and have the departments execute the PA40 action one after
>>> the
>>>> other.  This would lengthen the time the workflow takes to get
>> someone
>>>> hired and I don't know which department I would do first....they
all
>>> do
>>>> things in their own time.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Has anyone else encountered this problem?  Does anyone have any
>>>> suggestions?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Sue T. Doughty
>>>> SAP Workflow Specialist
>>>>
>>>> OLD DOMINION FREIGHT LINE, INC.
>>>>
>>>> 500 Old Dominion Way, Thomasville, NC 27360
>>>>
>>>> Toll Free :(800)432-6335, ext.5189
>>>> Phone :(336)822-5189 Fax :(336)822-5149
>>>> sue.doughty at odfl.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ****************************
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>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Mike Pokraka
>>> Senior Consultant
>>> Workflow Connections
>>> Mobile: +44(0)7786 910855
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SAP-WUG mailing list
>>> SAP-WUG at mit.edu
>>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
>>>
>>>
>>> ****************************
>>> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The information contained in this message
may
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>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Mike Pokraka
>> Senior Consultant
>> Workflow Connections
>> Mobile: +44(0)7786 910855
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SAP-WUG mailing list
>> SAP-WUG at mit.edu
>> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
>>
>>
>> ****************************
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>>
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>
>
> --
> Mike Pokraka
> Senior Consultant
> Workflow Connections
> Mobile: +44(0)7786 910855
>
> _______________________________________________
> SAP-WUG mailing list
> SAP-WUG at mit.edu
> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/sap-wug
>
>
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be
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-- 
Mike Pokraka
Senior Consultant
Workflow Connections
Mobile: +44(0)7786 910855

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