Stuck Workflows

The Stuck Workflows module is a diagnostic tool for the administrator. It lets you detect documents whose approval workflow got stuck and resume them. A document is considered stuck when its status is "In progress" but it has no pending approval task: with no tasks, no one can move it forward and the workflow stays halted indefinitely.

• Advantage: Recovers blocked documents without having to recreate them, avoiding wasted time and loss of traceability.
• Additional detail: It usually happens when an update failed to be applied (the document was locked or in the process of being checked out) or there was an interruption in SharePoint services right when a stage was closing. Some documents appear because their workflow never started: in those cases there is nothing to resume and the available action is to start the workflow.

Step by Step:

1. From the side menu, click Administration.


2. Select the Stuck Workflows. module.








3. Click the Analyze button. The system will review the documents and list those that are stuck.


4. Review the list and identify the affected documents. For each one, run the available action according to its case (resume the workflow if it stalled partway, or start the workflow if it never began).


5. Resuming may take up to 5 minutes to complete. Analyze again later to confirm that the document no longer appears as stuck.