Process Call

The Process Call step allows you to execute another Process from within a Process. When the Process is called, the Start Shape of that Process is invoked, executing its Connector to get data. The called Process execution results will display in the Manage Tab like a regularly executed Process.

It is important to understand the "main" Process does not actually pass its Documents into the "sub" Process and no Documents are returned to the "main" Process. The "sub" Process call is considered a separate, distinct Process execution. However, the "main" Process can override Connector Parameters, depending on the Connector type used in the "sub" Process.

The Process Call step enables you to design and reuse Processes that do initialization or clean up tasks as well as coordinate Processes for consecutive executions. This second ability is a simple and reliable way to coordinate the execution of Processes without the need to set a schedule for each Process independently. The Process Call can be configured to wait until that Process is complete before continuing with its next step. See the Scenarios below.

Important: Like all Process steps, the Process Call is executed once for each Document that reaches it. So if your Process happens to be executing multiple Documents when they reach the Process Call, the Process will be executed multiple times. If the intent of the Process Call is to execute that Process only once, simply add a Data Process step with a Combine Documents right before the Process Call.

Configuration

Field	Description
Process	Choose the Process to call.
Wait for process to complete	If checked, the current Process will wait for the called Process to complete before continuing to its next step.
Abort if process fails	If checked, the current Process will stop and be marked as failed. Only available if Wait for process to complete is checked.

Overriding Connector Parameters

If the Start Shape in the "sub" Process is configured with a Connector type that can accept parameters, you can set any parameter values from the Process Call step in "main" Process. This effectively overrides any parameters that may or may not be set in the "sub" Process. If you do not want to override the parameters, simply do not set any parameters in the Process Call step. If any parameters are set in the Process Call step, the parameters defined in the "sub" Process are ignored.

Click here for more information on setting Connector Operation Parameters.

Scenarios

A great way to use the Process Call step and is to coordinate the execution of multiple Processes, especially if a one Process shouldn't execute until one or more prior Processes have completed. This is an alternative to carefully setting schedules on each individual Process and allowing enough time for execution. Using the Wait for process to complete option guarantees the first Process completely finishes before the next Process begins.

There are two basic ways to implement the strategy: either add Process Call steps to the first Process in the series or create another "master" Process that simply reads in an arbitrary "seed file" that is used to pass through the Process to execute each Process Call step. With either approach you only need to set a schedule on the first or "master" Process.