This topic applies only to the IBM Business Automation Workflow Advanced
configuration.

Deleting completed task instances

Draft comment:
This topic only applies to BAW, and is located in the BAW repository. Last updated on 2025-03-13 12:15

Use the deleteCompletedTaskInstances.py administrative script to selectively delete from the Business Process Choreographer database or Business Process Archive database any top-level task instances that have reached an end state of finished, terminated, expired, or failed.

Before you begin

The following conditions must be met:

Run the script in connected mode, that is, do not use the wsadmin -conntype none option.
At least one cluster member must be running.
Include the wsadmin -user and -password options to specify a user ID that has operator authority.
If you are not working with the default profile, use the wsadmin -profileName profile option to specify the profile.

About this task

A top-level task instance is considered completed if it is in one of the following end states: finished, terminated, expired, or failed. You specify criteria to selectively delete top-level task instances and all their associated data, such as instance custom properties, escalation instances, subtask instances, and follow-on task instances, from the database.

Sometimes follow-on task instances form a chain of follow-on tasks; where all but the last task instance are in the forwarded state and the last task instance in the chain is in some other state. In this case, a top-level task instance that is in the forwarded state is considered to be completed if the last task instance in the chain is in one of the following end states: finished, terminated, expired, or failed.

Normally, an inline task instance is not considered to be a top-level task instance, and cannot be deleted using the deleteCompletedTaskInstances.py script because the inline task instance belongs to a BPEL process, which means you must use deleteCompletedProcessInstances.py to delete the completed process instance that the inline task belongs to. However, any inline invocation task instance that was created using the Human Task Manager API or the Service Component Architecture (SCA) API is treated as a top-level task instance, and can be deleted using the deleteCompletedTaskInstances.py script.

Procedure

Change to the Business Process Choreographer subdirectory where the administrative script is located.
Enter the following command:
```
cd install_root/ProcessChoreographer/admin
```
Enter the following command:
```
cd install_root\ProcessChoreographer\admin
```
Delete task instances from the database.
- Enter the following command:
```
install_root/bin/wsadmin.sh -f deleteCompletedTaskInstances.py 
     -cluster clusterName
     (-all | [-finished] [-terminated] [-failed] [-expired] )
     [-templateName templateName -nameSpace nameSpace] 
     [-validFromUTC timestamp]
     [-createdBy userID ]
     [(-completedAfterLocal timeStamp)|(-completedAfterUTC timeStamp)]
     [(-completedBeforeLocal timeStamp)|(-completedBeforeUTC timeStamp)]
```
- Enter the following command:
```
install_root\bin\wsadmin -f deleteCompletedTaskInstances.py 
    -cluster clusterName
    (-all | [-finished] [-terminated] [-failed] [-expired] )
    [-templateName templateName -nameSpace nameSpace] 
    [-validFromUTC timestamp]
    [-createdBy userID ]
    [(-completedAfterLocal timeStamp)|(-completedAfterUTC timeStamp)]
    [(-completedBeforeLocal timeStamp)|(-completedBeforeUTC timeStamp)]
```
where

-clusterclusterName

The name of the cluster where Business Process Choreographer or Business Process Archive Manager is configured.

-all | [-finished] [-terminated] [-failed] [-expired]

Specifies which task instances are to be deleted according to their state. The -all option means all end states: finished, terminated, failed, and expired. If you do not specify -all, you must specify one or more of the end states.

-templateNametemplateName

Optionally, specifies the name of the task template whose instances will be deleted. If you specify this option, you must also specify the nameSpace parameter. If there are multiple task templates with the same name but with different validFromUTC dates the instances for all task templates with that name are deleted unless you use the validFromUTC parameter to specify a particular template.

-nameSpacenameSpace

Optionally, specifies the namespace of the task template to be deleted. If you specify this option, you must also specify the templateName parameter. If there are multiple task templates with the same name but with different validFromUTC dates the instances for all task templates with that name are deleted unless you use the validFromUTC parameter to specify a particular template.

-validFromUTCtimestamp

The date and time from which the template is valid in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The string must have the following format: yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ss (year, month, day, T, hours, minutes, seconds). For example, 2005-01-31T13:40:50

-createdByuserID

Optionally, deletes only completed task instances that were created by the given User ID.

-completedAfterLocaltimestamp

Optionally, specifies that only instances that completed after the given local time on the server are deleted. The format for the timestamp string is the same as for -validFromUTC, except that the time part is optional for this parameter. If you specify only a date, the time defaults to 00:00:00 local time on the server.

-completedAfterUTCtimestamp

Optionally, specifies that only instances that completed after the UTC time are deleted. The format for the timestamp string is the same as for -validFromUTC, except that the time part is optional for this parameter. If you specify only a date, the time defaults to 00:00:00 local time on the server.

-completedBeforeLocaltimestamp

Optionally, specifies that only instances that completed before the given local time on the server are deleted. The format for the timestamp string is the same as for -validFromUTC, except that the time part is optional for this parameter. If you specify only a date, the time defaults to 00:00:00 local time on the server.

-completedBeforeUTCtimestamp

Optionally, specifies that only instances that completed before the given UTC time are deleted. The format for the timestamp string is the same as for -validFromUTC, except that the time part is optional for this parameter. If you specify only a date, the time defaults to 00:00:00 local time on the server.
For example, to delete the task instances on cluster myCluster that are in the finished state, and were created by the user Erich:

Enter the following command:
```
wsadmin.sh -f deleteCompletedTaskInstances.py 
           -cluster myCluster 
           -finished
           -createdBy Erich
```
Enter the following command:
```
wsadmin -f deleteCompletedTaskInstances.py 
        -cluster myCluster 
        -finished
        -createdBy Erich
```
If Business Process Choreographer is configured on the cluster, the tasks will be deleted from the Business Process Choreographer runtime database. If Business Process Archive Manager is configured on the cluster, the same command will delete the specified tasks from the archive database associated with the Business Process Archive Manager. Be careful not to delete any instances from a runtime database that should actually be moved to an archive.
Optional: If the script triggers long-running work, the script might fail if the connection timeout is not long enough to complete the action. Check the SystemOut.log file to see whether you need to restart the script. If the timeout happens often, consider increasing the value of the timeout property for the connector you are using, or adjusting the script parameters to reduce the amount of work done.

Results

The completed task instances have been deleted from the database associated with the Business Process Choreographer or Business Process Archive Manager configuration on the given deployment target.