Canceling a playbook automatically

You can configure a playbook to automatically cancel a running instance when specific conditions are met.

About this task

The automatic cancellation conditions are configured on the playbooks Activation Details window. You can configure the following options:

Cancelation options
The cancellation options specify the conditions under which the playbook is automatically cancelled. You can cancel a playbook based on an evaluation of the activation conditions, or you can specify a different set of conditions.

If you do not want a running instance to be cancelled automatically, do not specify any cancellation options.
Cancelation behavior
The cancellation behavior specifies what happens to the tasks of the cancelled playbook. You can choose to remove all tasks, remove open tasks, or do not remove any tasks.

When the playbook is designed using an object type other than Incident, you can use fields from the parent object to trigger the cancellation. However, the playbook cancellation conditions are evaluated only when a change to the child object is detected. For example, you can select incident fields for a playbook that has a Task object type, but the playbook cancellation conditions are evaluated only when changes are made to the task. The playbook is not cancelled when the incident is updated.

Some activation conditions are not valid for use with automatic cancellation. The invalid conditions are shown on the Activation details window. If you want to configure automatic cancellation for the playbook, you must remove the invalid activation conditions or cancel the automatic cancellation. If you remove an activation condition, you need to replace the condition, or at least review the remaining conditions.

When a playbook instance starts, it uses the automatic cancellation settings that are configured when the instance starts. Subsequent changes to the automatic cancellation settings do not affect playbook instances that are already running.

Procedure

Open the playbook in the canvas and select the activation node to open the Activation details window.

Tip: The activation node is the first node in the playbook.
Select Automatic cancelation (Optional) to open the options.
If there are no options that are configured, click Configure cancelation options; otherwise, click the edit icon.
To cancel the playbook automatically when the activation condition is no longer true, select Activation condition is no longer true.
To specify your own set of cancellation conditions, follow these steps:
1. Select Cancelation condition is true.
2. Under Cancelation condition, select the options from the list to build the condition statements that you want to use.
3. To specify more than one condition, click Add condition.
4. Select the type of condition set that you want to create.
  - All cancels the playbook only when all of the conditions match.
  - Any cancels the playbook when one or more conditions match.
  - Advanced provides the option to build different types of condition sets.
For more information about creating conditions, see Setting conditions that activate a playbook.
Under Cancelation behavior, choose which tasks are to be removed from the incident task list when the playbook is canceled.
- Choose Outstanding to deactivate only the incomplete tasks and remove them from the incident task list.
- Choose All to deactivate all tasks and remove them from the incident task list, including completed tasks.
- Choose None if you do not want to deactivate any tasks.
Tip: You can view the deactivated tasks by changing the status filter option to Inactive on the incident task list.
Click Done to activate the automatic cancellation.

Results

Functions that were started by the playbook stop processing when the playbook is cancelled.

To remove the automatic cancellation, on the Activation details window, expand the Automatic cancelation section and click the delete icon.