Handling errors in service flows

When you design a process or service that includes a service flow, you must provide logic to recover from possible errors that might be generated in the runtime application.

About this task

Error-handling functions in the parent process, service, or client-side human service can catch all or specific errors that are thrown from the underlying service flow. Within the service flow itself, you can use error boundary events that catch errors from the activities to which the events are attached.

To catch errors in the parent process, service, or client-side human service, use an error boundary event that is attached to the service flow node and catches errors at that particular step.
To catch errors in the service flow, use error boundary events that you can attach to activity nodes of either service task or linked service flow type.
To throw specific errors and end the processing of the service flow at a specified step, use error end events.

For more information about error handling in processes and services, see Handling errors using error events. For information about error handling in client-side human services, see Handling errors in client-side human services.

Table 1. Usage of error events in service flows
Icon	Error event	Description
	Error boundary event. An intermediate error event that is attached to an activity in the service flow.	Catches errors and receives error data from the service flow activity to which it is attached. To model where the service flow resumes after it catches an error, you connect each error boundary event to an activity that runs the error handling logic. You can wire an error boundary event to any node. You can attach error boundary events to any service-type activity in your service flow, be that a service task or a linked service flow. You can reposition the error boundary event along the boundary of the activity. You can remove it from the activity or you can move it to another activity. For more information, see Catching errors by using error boundary events.
	Error end event that throws an error and ends the processing of the service flow in which it is implemented.	Throws a specific error and ends the processing of the service flow in which it is implemented. You can connect an error end event to any node in the service flow. You can specify an error code and error data for the error. For more information, see Throwing errors in service flows.