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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / Deleted Workflow is st...
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

Deleted Workflow is still running and sending emails

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Posted on by emerceron1 115

I had a workflow in CRM 2011 that was creating multiple instances after a customer registered for an event. The customer would receive 4 emails because the workflow was triggered 4 times despite the person registering only once. I created a second version of the workflow and the second version triggers only once now. I deactivated the first version of the workflow and deleted it, but emails are still being sent out from the first version. I need this workflow to stop generating emails and I am not sure the way to go about that.

Elizabeth

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  • Wayne Walton Profile Picture
    Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

    Is this a long-running workflow?  If so, old instances of the workflow might have already been instantiated before you deleted the "template" workflow.  If that's the case, you could need to cancel them individually, or just let them run their course.

  • emerceron1 Profile Picture
    emerceron1 115 on at

    It is a long-running workflow, but the problem is anytime someone registers for an event they will be receiving emails from the old workflow (the one that was triggering multiple instances) and the new workflow (which is triggering correctly. The customer would be receiving 5 emails for 1 event; the old workflow triggering 4 times and the new workflow triggering once.

    Also, I am unable to cancel the instances individually because I already deleted the old workflow.

  • Wayne Walton Profile Picture
    Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

    You can go to each existing entity that the workflow is running on and cancel them from the entity itself.  It's either that or do some unsupported SQL magic.

  • emerceron1 Profile Picture
    emerceron1 115 on at

    I'm confused; the workflow is running on Event Participant entity, which is existing in our unmanaged solution. I expand Event Participant entity and I'm not sure where to go after that.

    FYI - I'm learning CRM 2011 as I use it and from the Dynamics community. I apologize beforehand if this is simple task that I am over-complicating.

  • Wayne Walton Profile Picture
    Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

    No worries, this isn't actually that simple, without the old core workflow to reference.

    On the left side of the Event Participant, there should be a "Workflows" link.  If you click there, you should see the individual workflow item running on the Event Participant.   Then just Cancel it on a per-Participant basis and you should be good to go.

    If it isn't there, you should be able to customize the form, go to the left navigation, and add the Workflow relationship and then do the above after publishing.

    For future reference, it's almost always a better idea to simply unpublish the old workflow, but don't delete it until all the individual workflow items are no longer running.

  • emerceron1 Profile Picture
    emerceron1 115 on at

    Since the workflow is in "Succeeded" status, I am unable to Cancel the individual workflow. I received an error message that states, "An error has occurred. The selected action was not completed for one or more records."

    I did notice that the deleted workflow is now triggering 3 times today. Is it possible that a timer is on the deleted workflow and it will stop on its own?

  • Wayne Walton Profile Picture
    Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

    Succeeded workflows are already complete.  You would want to look for workflows in "Waiting" or "In Progress" status.  

    To clarify something, when you make a new workflow, what you are really doing is making a template that will then copy itself individually to each record that executes the workflow.  So while you can delete the "workflow" you created, all of the copies that were sent out to your records while it was published are still out there and still "valid" as far as CRM is concerned.  You have prevented new ones from being created, as there is no template to work against, but old ones are still there.

    That is why I asked if it was long-running, because those can be very annoying to work out of the system, as they can sit around for a very long time and run completely improper business processes once the parent workflow you created is deleted.  

    Hence also why you need to check each Event Participant record individually for workflows in the "Waiting" or "In Progress" status.  To find ones still doing their thing and cancel them.  

  • emerceron1 Profile Picture
    emerceron1 115 on at

    Thank you for the explanation on workflows; that was very helpful for my team and I. Also, this workflow has been running since early August, so the workflow was active for a month.

    The core workflow did not have a "timeout" condition included in it, so it's only in "Waiting" status for about a second. I'm not able to catch in time to cancel the instances; it's already completed by the time I click "Cancel".

    Since the workflow did not have a timeout condition and completes before I cancel it, I'm not sure what to do now.

    ~Elizabeth

  • Wayne Walton Profile Picture
    Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

    In that case, I honestly thing the thing to do is to let them work themselves out of the system.  If they're not high volume, I'd just track them as they finish running and verify that they are really working out of the system.

    While this might not be an ideal situation due to the extra email, but at least if you're only getting a few a day, it's something that can be managed from a person-to-person basis.

  • emerceron1 Profile Picture
    emerceron1 115 on at

    Wayne,

    My team and I have been tracking the workflow for the past 2 days and the only thing that has changed is that it's sending 3 emails. When a customer registers for an event, this workflow triggers 3 times now. Not sure if that's an improvement.

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