Allow Tickets to Continue Through Workflows after a Web Request Node is Ran

To me this feels like a bug. But good to add it here as well. 
The workaround we do is to have all wokflows(WFA) that should run afterwards be before and have a timer node at the start of it and then a condition to check that it should run. Really bad workaround. 

@Daniel Söderlund Thanks for sharing this workaround! I agree it seems like a bug, but after working with FW support multiple times on this issue they’ve always replied that this is intended behavior. 

I guessed that :( 

@eeha0120 @zachary.king @msconfig87 what are your gut’s take on this ?

This was answered by a service technician from FreshService in incident #13629715:

Hi Matthias,

Thanks for your email.

Below is the update received from the backend team

When a web request node is involved in all three workflows and once the web request node in the first workflow gets triggered by the time the first workflow execution ends rest of the 2 workflows will go on standby and will not be triggered and that's the expected behavior.

Apologise that i cant be of much help here

Supriya Balaji (She/Her)

If we get votes on this they maybe look at changing this. 

This could indeed be a good Enhance opportunity for FreshService / FreshWorks.

Resources should not be exhausted (which maybe is the reason why this is currently not allowed, hence performance should not be affected).

Already voted for this idea.

Hi All,
Dropping in a quick update: We at Freshservice, have been working to improve upon this behaivior, and we currently have a feature in beta that we internally refer to as “seamless execution of Workflows”, that aims to fix this behavior. 

I’m detailing a high-level view of this behaivior, and please reach out to us at support@freshservice.com to have this feature enabled.
 

Product Behaivior before the feature was implemented:

• Imagine you have a special node like a Web Request or Orch app in Workflow 1. Until this node is executed, Workflow 1 won’t move forward, and none of the following Workflows (WF 2, WF 3, etc.) will run, even if the conditions to trigger them are met.

• However, if there are no nodes after this special node in Workflow 1, the subsequent workflows will execute as usual.

Product Behaivior after the feature is enabled:

• Now, if there’s a Web Request/Orch app node in Workflow 1, the nodes in WF 1 still won’t execute until the special node is completed. However, once WF 1 is fully completed, the subsequent workflows (WF 2, WF 3, etc.) will execute.

• If a workflow in the global workspace has a WR/Orch node, once it’s executed, the workflows in the local workspace will also proceed.

What’s available now?

• This feature is in BETA and can be enabled upon request for Web Request/Orch app nodes. Note that it can’t be enabled for each node individually.

• On the roadmap: The same capability for Approval nodes is planned to launch in BETA by early Q1 2025.

Recommendation:

• For customers who have intentionally configured nodes to block other workflows, it’s recommended to test this feature in a sandbox environment before moving it to production.

Thanks
Vish 
Outbound Product Manager, Freshservice

@viswanatha.mehta 

Thanks for putting in the effort detailing this. Enabled this on our test instances and I can confirm that it immediately solves the issues that we are facing with the blocking mechanisms previously present for the special nodes. Gone are the days of timer nodes for delaying the WFA special node execution, which is just wonderful.

Can’t wait to see what’s next in store in the near future!

As always, thanks for the support

The feature for “seamless execution of workflows” is within our instance for >6 months and every workflow after a web request is executed as expected. :-)